Psi Effect
by Cap'n Chryssalid
Summary: A fun-loving asari mercenary finds herself a little in over her head when she ends up abducted by terrifying aliens from beyond the galactic frontier. These asari-like creatures call themselves 'humans.' They seem to be secretly nosing about on the borders of known space, acting through proxies, conducting covert operations, and they've got a deal for an enterprising asari...
1. Chapter 1

I've been writing this on the spacebattles forum as a bit of a lark, but I'm some thousands of words in and was recently asked to make an FFN archive for it. So here we go!

INFO:

Crossover: Mass Effect & XCOM: Enemy Within

Timeframe: set before the canon games

* * *

(1)

* * *

The nebula stretched out like a pink and neon blue shroud, a vast enveloping canopy that separated this part of the vast Attican Traverse from the rest of civilized – which was to say Citadel – space. This deep in the galactic backwoods designations were more common than names, and this particular stop fell into the former category. Angling away from the rarely used Mass Relay, a small ship curved through space, angling away from the system's tiny, frozen, third planet.

The fourth planet in the system was much larger but similarly frigid and of little interest to spacefaring species. The primitive anaerobic life that eked out a living in the inhospitable environment had been studied centuries ago, leaving nothing of repute for modern visitors. A small hydrogen-helium pegasid hugged the K-class orange star that lay at the center of the system.

That left only the second planet in the unnamed system: yet another frozen rock, though with more water and a halfway breathable atmosphere… provided one was a krogan, anyway. It sat just outside what would have been a normal habitable zone, almost exactly the same orbital distance Thessia enjoyed, but this icy blue marble was a far cry from the _Crown Jewel of the Asari_ in every other respect. It was a frozen waste, just like the rest of this system, just like the rest of this cluster, and even pirates – smart ones anyway – avoided it. Yet it was their destination all the same.

Ilena Thanoptis shivered at the thought. Whoever their contact was, if he was smart he wouldn't keep them waiting around on that ice-ball for long. Even asari commandos could get… _twitchy_.

Another asari commando paced down the shuttle's cargo hold.

"Get your gear ready!" she barked, one arm holding her helmet and the other waving her rifle threateningly. "I don't want any fuck ups! You stick close and you follow my lead! Anyone so much as takes _one step_ out of line and I'll leave you buried in the snow! Understand?"

"Yes, sir, commander Sederis!" Ilena joined the other mercenaries in a chorus.

Everyone knew that Sederis's threats were more like promises. Jona Sederis was a powerful biotic, and she combined that with a vicious streak that would impress a krogan. It was best just to yell when she wanted you to yell, don't mess up in any obvious way, and otherwise keep under the radar. Sederis had been running their little outfit for a few years now, and after a while, you got a feel for her quirks. Every merc captain had them, after all: their little _eccentricities_.

At least she was always easy to pick out in a fight: Sederis seemed to have a love for gold and black and wore it all over her hardsuit. Everyone else was a mismatch of colors: purples, blues, one in hot red. Ilena stuck with a pale white and blue. If worst came to worst, there was always the option of diving into the snow and keeping hidden. She chuckled to herself at the idea… and wisely didn't try and share the joke. Besides, white went well with her lighter shade of blue skin. Any good merc had to have points for panache, too! It was part of the _lifestyle_.

"Hey," Ilena whispered, nudging the turian seated next to her. "You got any idea what we're doing down here?"

"Collectors… or slavers… or something," he replied, sounding disinterested. Noram was the turian's name. He was big and beefy as far as turians went. Ilena got the impression he was a bit simple, too. It wasn't just his lack of conversational skills or the fact that he only smiled when he got to squeezing the trigger on his shotgun. A lot of folks were like that, and admittedly, you didn't become a merc out on the Traverse and Terminus if you didn't like shooting things at least a _little bit_. No: it was more that far off look he always seemed to have, like he was staring out through a bulkhead.

'Slavers' wasn't a bad guess, though.

Their cargo, in addition to a squad of heavily armed mercs – that usually doesn't count as cargo – included a bunch of crates that looked suspiciously like coffins. They were definitely asari and turian sized and shaped, and having sneaked a peek earlier, they had a frosted over little window, too. So either there were groceries in there, or maybe drugs, or bodies. A good haul could be made with two of those three products. The rest of the boxes looked much more mundane: some electronics, a salarian-made mech, a few crates marked with bio-samples, a whole bunch of omnitools, a captive quarian…

"Yeah, _slavers_." Ilena nodded to herself. The quarian in the back was technically a captive, but she didn't seem to be kicking or screaming or trying to escape. Nor did she have that resigned look that most poor fools had before being shipped off into batarian space. Her wrists were cuffed over her ramshackle black clean-suit, her omnitool disabled. She sat in the back of the shuttle, head lowered. Not that anyone could see her face anyway.

Though, on second thought, who wanted a quarian slave, anyway?

Not like you could use them for much manual labor. You couldn't even have much off-hours fun with one, not without it getting sick. Ilena supposed you could lock it up in a room and force it to do tech support. By the goddess! What a cruel fate that would be!

"We're coming in on the drop site!" the pilot warned, his voice bearing the usual batarian inflection.

"You heard him. Get your shit ready!" Captain Sederis yelled, "Helmets on! Weapons loaded!"

"Here we go, I guess," Ilena murmured, slipping her helmet on and checking the hermetic seals and environmental settings. It was Badass Asari Commando Time.

* * *

Snow crunched underfoot as Sederis directed her squad to fan out around the transport and establish a perimeter. Atmosphere aside, the frozen planet around them was still good and frozen. In fact, the atmosphere made it worse! It was colder than a matriarch's privates and, on top of that fun; there were gusts of wind blowing in that lowered visibility. While they were setting up, Ilena paused and picked up a handful of native snow. It was icy, rather than methane-y, and packed into a satisfactory snowball. So at least this planet had _one_ thing going for it.

"Quit goofing off!" Sederis choose that moment to shout, and Ilena quickly tossed the snowball behind her. "Roggo! Thanoptis! Noram! Look sharp!"

For all Captain Sederis's posturing and barking, they were left standing in the snow for several minutes before anything actually interesting happened. No: not the snow angel. That was interesting and mysterious, but not what everyone had been waiting for.

Their contact finally arrived.

It was another asari… by the look of her.

She emerged from out of the snow storm like a ghost (or a snow angel, Ilena couldn't help but think with a giggle), carrying two sizeable cases by their handles. The cases were normal enough, but this asari they were meeting had some custom gear. Sederis directed everyone to take up positions, and Ilena did as asked, but she also took a moment to zoom in with her rifle scope to get a better look at their new arrival.

She had a hardsuit on, of course, but on top of it was the sort of outfit a quarian might wear: like a hood or part of a robe. It shimmered black and blue and then transparent-white like the snow. Probably a tactical cloak, then. The hardsuit beneath the cloak looked… different, too. Bulkier. There were corded bands of some sort of fiber around the arms, for example. But it was hard to tell, exactly. The strange asari helmet completely concealed her face as well.

"You have it?" a female voice spoke.

"Take a look," Sederis invited the new arrival forward, to where they'd loaded up the goods on a trolley. Said 'goods' included the frozen people and the quiet, sulking quarian.

The new asari slowly walked forward, closer and closer into the trap.

Only for her to stop, mid-step, and hesitate.

"Payment," she said, holding out the two briefcases. "Take them. Go."

"You'll need help unloading all this onto your ship, won't you?" Sederis asked, not approaching the cases. "Where _is_ your ship, by the way?"

Rather than answer, the asari trudged away from the landed shuttle.

"Hey!" Sederis barked at her back. "You want us to just leave this stuff here?"

The asari in the odd hardsuit turned back around. "Yes. You have your payment. Take it and go."

"Yeah, I'm not going to do that." Sederis charged up her biotics in one hand and leveled her rifle with the other. The signal given, a dozen other mercenaries did the same. "See, my orders are to find out who you are and who you work for. Now, you can make this painless, or you can make it painful. The bullets and biotics are the painful way."

"Don't let her cloak!" Ilena warned, as a faint shimmer began to trickle out from around the asari's shoulders. Falling snow was abruptly pushed away from the activating cloak along with a gust of wind.

"Painful it is!" Captain Sederis roared, opening fire with her Armax Crossfire. Controlled three round bursts were soon joined by two other, similarly armed mercenaries, while a pair of vanguards rushed forward with shotguns.

Ilena, her rifle shouldered and leveled, kept her finger over the trigger but didn't fire.

There was no glitter of mass effect shielding.

The shots were _missing_.

And everyone was still clustered far too close to-

One of the briefcases exploded, filling Ilena's visor with a vibrant green light. 'Why,' her brain struggled to process a single silly thought amid the confusion, 'why was it so green?' Green was such a tacky color. As she hit the soft, snow covered ground, her polarized helmet soon filtered out the painful viridian light. What it revealed was a molten crater, but shaped like a crescent rather than a circle. It looked almost like silica glass. Like someone's fancy window or countertop.

Not far from it, four of the men and women Ilena had flown down to the planet with were dead. One, a batarian brute from some shitstain of a colony she couldn't remember but that he always gushed about, had undergone some rather drastic weight loss. Most of his midsection was gone, seared away by that green flame. Another mercenary, a turian, had lost both legs and most of his lower body. There was no sign of fire amid the swirling snow, and no blood. That brief, blinding flash had just removed half his body. Another asari commando, further away from the explosion, was on the ground, flailing wildly with one arm. Of the fourth, there was little to take note of, except the one leg and a formerly well maintained assault rifle, now half-molten.

It was a bit of a shock.

More of a shock came when things – _tentacled things_ – materialized out of thin air. Like deranged hanar, they descended and began to entangle four more mercenaries in their silvery tentacles. One of the victims was Noram, and for all his size and strength, the big turian started to panic the moment the hanar-geth-lovechild wrapped a pair of tentacles around his face and neck.

With a pop-hiss one of the mechanical hanar flashed green, a faintly glowing hole punched into the chest of the turian it had been subduing. Ilena gritted her teeth, summoned up a biotic push, and slammed it into both Noram and the floating robot… thing. Both went flying, but at least they momentarily separated. Unfortunately, sending a flying robot 'flying' was not quite that effective. The tentacled mech reoriented itself with ease and started rushing towards the asari that had interrupted its meal. Or face-love. Or whatever it was after this fine evening.

Ilena scrambled backwards, opening up with her rifle the moment she got a good bead on the mech.

It wasn't invulnerable – thank the Goddess – and nine heart-pounding bullets later the mech exploded just within arm's, (or tentacle's) reach of the asari commando. Frantic and catching her breath, Ilena heard a crunch in the snow and spun around, expediting yet another gethified hanar to pop out and start playing tease-the-tentacle with her helmet. Just barely easing her finger off the trigger, she realized it was the quarian captive. She was hiding behind the trolley with all the other merchandize.

Okay – yes – that was a good idea.

"Make way!" Ilena yelled, diving down behind the same cover. Her mind, in a rare moment of clarity and lucidity, recalled the crescent shaped explosion from before. It had been directed in all directions but one – towards the trolley. Whoever this asari with the robot pets was, she didn't want her goods being blasted.

"Captain!" she heard someone cry. "What are you-"

"She's shooting at us!"

"Sederis! What the hell!"

Jona Sederis, once at the front of the squad in pursuing the strange asari woman, had abruptly turned around and started firing at her own snipers. One went down to a fusillade of mass effect propelled rounds and the other scrambled for new cover, his sidearm's bullets dinging off the Captain's biotic barrier. The others, still struggling with the mechanical hanar, soon went down to point-blank discharges of green light.

As for the two vanguards who charged after that asari…. _Fuck them_.

"Surrender!" Ilena yelled out from behind the trolley, holding up her hands and pointing her rifle into the blue, snowy sky. "I surrender! Please don't rape my face! I use it every day and I like it as it is!"

Standing among the ashes of her attack squad, Captain Sederis craned her neck in a curious, sort-of alien, way.

"Ha," she spoke, mechanically. "You surrender?" she asked, but her voice was strained. _Forced_.

"I've never surrendered harder in my life," Ilena replied, carefully putting her rifle down on the trolley but not stepping out from behind it.

"Probably shouldn't shoot you then," Sederis said, and now Ilena was sure of it. It was like the asari was just repeating someone else's words.

"Oh, Sweet Goddess, please don't snatch my body!" Ilena suddenly cried, reaching behind her to yank the captive quarian up to eye level. "That's what she's for, right? Take her, not me!"

"Snatch your…?" Sederis's body asked, making an odd sort of sound. She pointed to herself. "Oh, _this_."

From out of the swirling snow, the strange asari appeared. She placed a hand on Sederis's helmet, patting it like a krogan would his favorite pet varren… or vorcha. She had a weapon, too, Ilena noticed. It didn't quite look like any rifle she had ever seen before, and just like the explosion earlier, the barrel of this rifle glowed a faint green.

"Oh yes, I just ate her mind just now," the strange asari said with a dark laugh. "It was very tasty. Behave yourself, don't do anything stupid, and I won't do this to you. Clear?"

"As clear as Thessian crystal!"

"As clear as what?" the asari asked and shook her head. "Nevermind. Just keep out of the way for now."

Ilena was very nearly about to open her mouth and – as she often did to her detriment – keep talking, when more shapes began to move from out of the swirling snow. At first, she had thought them to be krogan, but they were too big, even for that. They were… disks. Big, silvery disks.

"Fascinating," she heard the quarian whisper, speaking for the first time.

Ilena just groaned. "What have I gotten into now?"

* * *

Ilena Thanoptis was starting to suspect this other 'asari' wasn't an asari at all!

It wasn't that she didn't have the figure for it. She definitely did. The real tip-off came some time later, when a similarly dressed body-snatcher asari showed up. She also looked the part, but the two conversed in a language Ilena had never heard. Granted, there were a few weird Thessian dialects out on the various and storied colonies the asari had settled on across the galaxy, but all were at least _recognizable_ forms of jibber-jabber.

This one didn't sound like anything in Citadel space. It was _definitely_ alien. Either that or these asari had invented their own alien language. Maybe they were scifi geeks who spent too much time around salarians?

That would also explain the mech-fetish.

"Keep back," the first one said, motioning for Ilena and the quarian to keep their distance.

"What's going on?" the asari commando asked, crossing her arms over her armored chest. "I've never been taken prisoner before – well, maybe _once_ before – or twice… but aren't you sort of obliged to tie us up or something?"

The first fake-asari, the one that had been in the firefight, chuckled.

"No need," she replied.

"Any moment now I could plan my daring escape."

The fake-asari graced her with an inquisitive look. "Really?"

"Sure, why not? I'm a dangerous, powerful biotic, you know," Ilena warned her.

"Stronger than that one?" the fake-asari asked, pointing back at Captain Sederis. Or what was left of her. She was standing, but hunched forward slightly. Ilena could see the mercenary captain's face through her visor, and she looked either high or braindead. Or both, considering she was sort of braindead to start with. At least she wasn't drooling… _much_…

"Hha hha hha!" Ilena breezily laughed, moving her hands to her hips. "Have I mentioned 'I surrender' yet?"

"Many times," the shackled quarian noted with what almost sounded like amusement.

Ilena narrowed her eyes at the migrant. "Well it bears repeating."

A moment later and the ground began to shake.

Rising up from out of the thick drifts of snow and ice, Ilena saw another large disk. The others had been workers and robotic soldiers of some sort, and like the hanar-mechs, they had assisted the fake-asari in scanning and moving the trolley. Hence the worker part. The soldier part…? Well, that mostly came from how the two of them had morphed, firing lances of amber light into Sederis's landed transport, blowing it halfway to Omega.

Just like those disks and the hanar-things, this big one – a ship probably – didn't seem to have normal engines or other means of propulsion. It was a little larger than shuttle sized but it had to be these asari's equivalent. As the snow and ice sloughed off the sides, it revealed that it was a bit more of an oval or an egg, rounded on the top but much flatter on the bottom. Perhaps the best was to describe it was like a stone in the water, worn smooth and round. Over the smooth layer of armor was a second set that seemed able to shift and move independently. The sides facing the rear shimmered with blueish-green energy.

It floated with hardly a sound. Where the roar of a normal ship's engines would be deafening, this close, this ship moved with barely a hum. It alighted so gently at first, landing on a patch of snow nearby, that it almost seemed as if it would land and take off again with nary a trace left behind. Instead, the moment the glow of the ship hit the snow, it turned instantly to vapor. Ilena made a mental note: glowing stuff equals unhealthy. Then again, glowing stuff was always unhealthy! That was probably why it glowed. The universe was telling you not to touch it.

The blue-green sections peeled away after it landed, but it did so in a way that materials really couldn't. It had to be a technology similar to mass effect shields, like the ones engineers always put up to keep you from shooting them. In this case, instead of the shields protecting someone's face, they revealed an open cargo bay.

It seemed they were all going for a little ride.

As for the final nail in the coffin as to any of these aliens being real asari…

* * *

"You're _male_," Ilena stated, poking the alien in the chest. Yep. Male. Or embarrassingly flat. There was one way to be absolutely sure.

But a more in depth examination… probably wasn't wise at the moment.

The would-be asari swatted away Ilena's hand and turned towards one of the female fake-asari. None of their faces were visible behind their strange armor, and they didn't speak any intelligible language, but their mannerisms were frequently asari-ish. Enough that Ilena would guess what they were talking about.

"I get why that one's here," the male seemed to be saying, pointing first at the suspiciously quiet quarian. "And I'm sure we can torture and eat that idiot." He gestured towards the brain-damaged Captain Sederis. "But what's up with that other one? The beautiful and talented asari maiden? She's amazing, but what's she doing here?"

Admittedly that interpretation might have been… a _little_ embellished…

"Should I have shot her instead?" the female seemed to be asking, defensively. "She surrendered, and she's far too attractive and great to kill. She was the only one who didn't have her face eaten by our hanar-mechs."

"I don't disagree with your assessment of her appearance, in fact, I think you undersell her, but-"

"I think they're arguing over who gets to kill you," the quarian murmured.

"Stop ruining my fantasy," Ilena grumbled. She glanced over at her former captive, and now fellow captive. "What's your name anyway? I don't want to keep calling you 'quarian' or 'that quarian.'"

_That quarian_ promptly turned away with an indignant and universal-across-species huff.

"Fine," Ilena growled at her, "be that way! Your name is Bucketthead now."

"Buckethead? Buckethead!" the quarian whirled around and stood on the tips of her toes in an effort to loom over the asari commando. "If I had my omni-tool right now-"

"Ohhh? But you _don't_ have your omni-tool," Ilena reminded her with a smirk. "Bucket. Head."

"Quiet, both of you," the female fake-asari interrupted. The male took Captain Sederis away to another part of the ship, leaving his comrade to herd the two elsewhere. Elsewhere ended up being a small, featureless room.

Though calling it a 'room' was being too generous. It was more like a metal closet. Ilena mentally gagged. Even her sisters back home had closets bigger than this! Just for shoes, even!

"H-hey!" Ilena finally found the courage to object. "What's going on? Who are you, anyway?"

"No one you'd know," the rough woman said, pushing Ilena into the cell. "Just sit tight for now."

* * *

"Well? Impressions?"

"Of the quarian?"

"No, we have her dossier. I mean the asari."

"Ah. _Her_. She's kind of an idiot, sir."

Sitting down, Lieutenant Annabel Shepard placed her helmet on her lap. She still wore the rest of her psi-armor, but it was more a second skin after so long than a hindrance. Sometimes, it felt strange _not_ wearing it. Regardless, the body-glove was personally fitted and conformed to her body and suited for extreme long-term deployment. It always felt good to remove the helmet, however. Shepard ran a hand through her short black hair and sighed. Faint traces of purple psionic energy ebbed out of the corner of her eyes as she tried to pat down her mass of hair into something marginally less disheveled.

"Her head can't be _completely_ empty," her commanding officer argued.

Sans helmet, he appeared to be a middle aged man, brown hair streaked by flecks of gray. That reckoning didn't account for the MELD in his bloodstream. Captain Benjamin Price had fought in the Ethereal War. He was rather older than he looked… but then, that was true of a lot of people.

"Scatter-brained might be a better way to put it," Annabel explained. She leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees, briefly looking over at the ship's navigator.

Denise was at the 'helm' – such as it was. There was no real cockpit. The ship had a master navigation console that projected all the relevant data into a holographic display around the pilot. It was mostly for the benefit of those riding shotgun. All the real piloting was done with a neural-interface. The pilot's body sat in front of the console and the brain did all the real work. Everyone on the ship, all three of them, were certified and trained to fly a basic TRaNsport-type Firestorm. Other ships just used dedicated Sectoid navigators, but as an alternative on long trips human squads could take turns in the hot seat. Neither option was strictly necessary here.

The ship was already well outside the Pax System, headed not for the mass relay but for their rendezvous in deep space. Experience, what little of it they had with mass relays and Citadel spaceways, indicated that virtual all activity, illicit or otherwise, in these star systems took place at or around mass relays. A quick burn into the Deep Black and you were basically undetectable. No one was even looking.

They'd left the burning wreck of Sederis's transport freighter in orbit around the planet Noveria. Shepard nearly rolled her eyes at the memory. So the duplicitous pirates and mercenaries had tried a double-cross? _Really?_ Well, it seemed that bridge was well and truly burned now. Less burned, actually, and more vaporized with nuclear fire. But maybe it was for the best. Doing all their work through criminal networks, posing as this group of local boogymen, called the 'Collectors,' was proving troublesome. Worse than troublesome: it was becoming unreliable.

"She surrendered, sir," Lieutenant Shepard continued, facing her CO. "Threw down her weapon and everything. If she knew what a white flag was, she'd probably be wearing it. We couldn't leave her alive down on the planet, so capture seemed like the best option."

"She's a pirate, you know," Captain Price reminded her. "Just like the ones we used to have back in the day."

"I felt her out already. I'm pretty sure she thinks of it as a big adventure," Shepard argued. "You've read about these asari we're impersonating? She's probably younger than _you_, sir. I'd rather not shoot another dumb kid if I can help it."

"If she was a 'kid' then she'd be in a classroom somewhere, not running around with that bunch."

"I dunno, sir." Shepard ran her hand along the crown of her helmet, tracing her finger over where the squad and organization's _Vigilo Confido_ logo would normally be. "When I was in college, I spent a spring break on vacation, hiking up Mount Olympus. When an asari is in college, maybe her vacation is spending a couple years as a cold-blooded mercenary?"

"Or an exotic dancer," Price joked. "If you believe that." He pointed at the lieutenant. "If she causes trouble…"

"Yes, sir," Annabel agreed, nodding. "I disabled her omni-tool as well, not that she's capable of hacking her way into or out of a wet bag. But sir? What about the shipment? Was it all there? Is it even clean for transport?"

Price grunted unhappily, clenching his jaw in displeasure. "Best I can tell, they short-changed us again, just like the last time. We have the quarian. That's the most important thing, but half of those 'omni-tools' aren't the brand or the make we requested. The bodies check out at least, so some of the lab boys and girls will be happy, plus we gathered up all the bits-of-pirate you left in the snow… for what that's worth. Though you know, back in _my day_, we had to police enemy bodies with our bare hands. We didn't have drones to do it for us."

"Yes, sir," the lieutenant agreed, ideally to forestall yet another rant about the 'old days.'

"Did I ever tell you about that time I had to hunt for weapon shards in the middle of Brazilian jungle?"

"Yes, sir."

"Really?"

"This is the story with the centipede."

"Huh. I guess I did tell that one." Captain Price 'hmm'ed and finally decided to skip over making another campfire tale of it. "Anyway: the bodies. They're clean enough to run through a final check on the Veritable, but I heard Doctor Vahlen's really interested in getting her hands on more of those krogan critters. This shipment was supposed to have a female one, but I didn't see it. So, yeah. We got ripped off."

Lieutenant Shepard shook her head and sighed. "Then again, you can tell grandma Vahlen that at least we didn't pay for any of it this time."

"True."

* * *

"Ohhh! Amazing!"

And so they had their very own little first-contact. It went surprisingly well.

"It's _soooo soft!_" The asari insisted on running her finger through the lieutenant's hair. Back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth-

"You can stop that now," Lieutenant Shepard stated, deadpan. "I'm flattered you like my hair, but is that really the most surprising thing you've seen today?"

At least one of the aliens, the quarian, seemed to be taking this seriously. "Of course not," she answered.

"Speak for yourself," Ilena insisted, until finally the human had to reach up and remove her hand. "You say it comes in reds and golds and browns, too!"

"Excuse her." The quarian leaned over the stacked crates that served as a makeshift table for the three women. "This _ship_ is amazing-"

"That _hair_ is amazing."

The two alien women glared at one another.

"Poor Buckethead. You can't feel anything with your fingers, so you don't know how great it is," Ilena broke the short silence and sat back in her chair, rubbing her fingers together teasingly. "If only you weren't stuck in that suit!"

The quarian was left staring at her fingers, as if _wondering_…

"Wonderful." She quickly snapped out of it and shook her helmeted head. "Your stupidity is contagious." She turned away from the infuriating asari and inclined her head in a shallow but stiff bow to the human who had so recently revealed herself. "Lieutenant Shepard, we haven't been properly introduced. My name is Daro'Xen nar Shellen. Though I suspect you knew that from the start. May I ask what is your purpose in … obtaining my services?"

"What _are_ your services, anyway?" the asari asked with a sly look. "Because my omni-tool is a _lot_ buggier and slower than when first I got it and sometimes I get this orange-screen-of-death-"

"As for why we want you exactly, it really isn't for me to say," Lieutenant Shepard cautiously answered, ignoring the baby blue commando. "Rest assured, we don't practice slavery, Daro'Xen nar Shellen. 'Purchasing' you in this manner was just the most expedient way to get our hands on a qualified quarian."

Ilena gasped. "So I was right! You _do_ want her for tech support!"

Ignoring her just like the human was, Daro'Xen instead asked her new host, "If I am not a slave, can I return to The Fleet if I choose?"

"About that," the human replied, "you aren't a slave, like I said, but you aren't free to do what you want either. If you don't want to cooperate with us, then you'll just have to be our guest for… a while."

"A while?" Daro asked. "How long is 'a while,' if I may ask?"

"Years?" Shepard guessed.

"Years?"

"Years."

"_Years_," Ilena repeated, and the two women stared at her. The asari commando slammed a fist onto the table between them. "I will not be left out of _this_ or _any_ conversation!"

"Why is she here again?" Daro'Xen remarked.

Shepard shrugged. "Comedic relief, I think."

"Well, _I_ don't think that." Ilena Thanoptis grumbled, kicking back in her chair. She didn't let herself get too comfortable, however. Being in the strange ship's cargo hold was better than being stuffed in the broom closet, but at least in the closet no one was looming over you with a gun to your head. No one you could _see_ anyway. To drive the point home, Ilena pointed back at one of the two floating cybernetic-disk things that shared the cargo hold with them.

"We all saw those two blow up a shuttlecraft, right?" she asked, and the Cyberdisc playfully dipped at being pointed out. It was sort of cute in a murderous-red-glow kind of way. "That wasn't just my imagination, was it? Because if it wasn't my imagination, I have a shuttlecraft-killing beam cannon pointed at the back of my pretty little head. You'll have to forgive me for getting a little nervous and running my mouth. It just helps me cope with the threat of imminent exploding-all-over-the-walls."

"Merely a precaution," Lieutenant Shepard promised.

Ilena crossed her arms again and tapped her armored bicep. "So… let me sum this up: you're aliens and you abduct people?"

"That is… _ironically_ pretty much the case, yes," the human agreed.

"Those disk-things don't have probes, do they?"

"Actually, they do."

Ilena threw up her hands. "Well that's just _wonderful_."

Shepard chuckled. "Relax. They only come for you when you sleep."

"You're kidding," Ilena stated, laughing at herself as well. She turned around to face the floating cyberdisc. "She's kidding! You heard it! Or better yet, probe the quarian! They love that stuff!"

"But you _are_ aliens," Daro'Xen said, more serious than the other two women, "and you _are_ abducting us, and likely others I'd bet."

"We need information on your races," Shepard answered, growing serious again as well. "We've been visiting your corner of the galaxy for a while now…"

"Wait. No. Way." Ilena interrupted. "I understand you're posing as Collectors, but there's no way you could've been sneaking around for very long without _someone_ noticing. Turian Intelligence. Spectres. STG. _Customs and Immigration_. Even if your ship was invisible or something, you'd have to be _blind_ to miss things coming and going from the major mass relays!"

The lieutenant nodded in agreement. "Fortunately for us, we don't use mass effect relays."

"Oh! Well! That explains-" The asari commando was rudely pushed off her chair mid-sentence.

"**You what**." Daro'Xen suddenly took up her half of the little metal table, rising up onto her feet. "You don't use…?"

"I see that got your attention," Shepard noted.

"…excuse me," Daro said, reining herself in and slowly taking her seat again. "Yes. Lieutenant Shepard. It has my attention."

"You know," Ilena also slowly got back to her feet. "Most quarians are smart enough not to interrupt powerful, awesome biotic commandos when they're talking-"

"You actually have an alternative means of faster than light travel?"

"I wouldn't be able to share the specifics."

"Let me guess: you weren't after just any quarian on her pilgrimage."

"Again, I'm not at liberty to share the specifics."

"-**so** you have a way of sneaking around," Ilena raised her voice, taking her seat and shooting a fuming glare at the quarian next to her. "Again: why?"

"Suffice to say we aren't ready to reveal ourselves to the Citadel Council just yet," Shepard explained. "Once we've gathered sufficient intelligence, our superiors will decide what to do."

"What to do?" Ilena repeated, not understanding what the human meant. "What do you mean?"

"Idiot," Daro'Xen answered with a hiss. "If they have other means of FTL, they don't have to enter Citadel space at all. They can go wherever they want between the relatively few systems and clusters accessible via mass effect relays. They don't have to interact with us at all… unless they _want_ to. Ninety-nine percent of the galaxy is still unmapped."

"_Hey_. Hey. First of all: I'm _not_ an idiot!" Ilena snapped at the smarmy quarian. "Second of all: I will say thanks for explaining that, because I did not get that _at all_."

"Moron."

"Buckethead!"

"Listen," Lieutenant Shepard interrupted, rapping her knuckled against the table with a knock-knock. "If you'll let me finish? We're going to bring the both of you in. Daro, I can confirm that you were picked specifically for this and obtaining you was one of our primary objectives today. Ilena, you're mostly just here because of a fish-"

"A what?"

"Flu-k-e. A fluke. That didn't translate properly. It means because of random chance."

"So… you're saying I'm lucky?" The asari grinned and nodded her head. "Good. Good."

"You have biotics, too, which could be useful to us," Shepard finished, though she didn't sound all that convinced. Especially because Ilena was still nodding to herself in a self-congratulatory way. It didn't inspire confidence. "Yeah, _very_ useful..."

* * *

In the Deep Black of extra-solar space outside the Pax System, the TRN-type Firestorm rendezvoused with a much larger, rectangular UFO. Just like the Firestorm itself, the Blockbuster-class of Battleship was a modified and hybridized version of the Ethereal War alien Battleship, several of which had darkened the skies of Earth by the end of the war. The current incarnation was, like the original, roughly cigar-shaped, with nictitating plates of Etherium armor occasionally revealing faintly glowing red orbs along the sides.

The Firestorm was just a fighter-transport, the equivalent of a local species shuttle. It was absurdly fast, especially outside an atmosphere, but it wasn't FTL capable. Aside from the ones assigned for base defense, every Firestorm needed a mothership to get where it was going. For the last three missions, that had been the BB-5016 _Kilimanjaro_. Lieutenant Shepard was still not entirely sure whether the assignment of that particular ship had been a coincidence or a bit of a private joke on the Fleet Commander's part.

Lt. Commander Hannah Shepard was XO on the BB-5016, after all.

"Captain Price," the holographic display of Annabel Shepard's only daughter greeted them, her tone laconic. "Sergeant Day. Lieutenant Shepard. I take it things went well."

Captain Price nodded. "We ended up killing our contacts."

"Hmm."

"We also captured two asari, so expect some extra warm bodies: one ambulatory, one mind-frayed, plus the quarian. I'm forwarding my preliminary."

"Not just alive, but un-flayed?" Hannah Shepard's lips just barely cracked a faint smile. A strand of her bright red hair fell part way over her left eye, escaping from the loose ponytail she wore. "Mother, how unlike you to leave things alive in your wake; don't tell me you're feeling your age?"

"Ninety is the new forty," Annabel assured her, "Lieutenant Commander."

"_Everything_ is the 'new forty,'" Hannah reminded her. She glanced away briefly, probably at someone among the bridge crew. "We're assuming control of the Firestorm now."

The Firestorm soon vanished behind one of the armored screens and the Battleship winked out into a brief, black singularity. Their next stop: Arcturus, both the star and the ship. It was XCOM Headquarters beyond the Local Cluster. It had also been the closest still-active mass relay leading to Earth.

Emphasis on the 'had been.'

* * *

"Relay 314?" Commander Desolas Arterius had never even heard of the thing before.

What was out that way? Just a lot of nothing. 314?

"Yes, sir," the other turian replied, nervously holding his datapad over his chest. "If you'll check, um, particularly pages sixty three to seventy one, you'll see that we have very… very convincing… evidence, that is to say, we've made a very educated guess based on our translations and other data… that there may be a prothean relic site of some sort beyond Relay 314. If you could just forward our findings to someone, like General Orinia, maybe-"

"I'll see what I can do," Desolas promised and the scientist's eyes lit up.

"Really?" he asked, sounding surprised. "Thank you, sir! Trust me, this is a sure thing! We just need to reactivate the relay!"

"Maybe so, but High Command won't authorize activating a relay on just _this_," the young Commander reminded him, waving about his copy of the scientist's datapad. "There are procedures to go through. Regulations. That's not even considering what's needed to get the approval of the Salarian and Asari. I'll forward it along, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I remember it took twenty cycles before they opened the last relay."

"Relay 258," the scientist answered. "I know, sir. And I can wait. I'm confident what's waiting for us will be worth it."

"We'll see," Desolas replied, and gestured for the turian to go.

The technician did, but only after another profuse: "Thank you again, sir!"

_'How far down his list was I, anyway?' _Desolas thought, watching the mousy turian leave his office._ 'You'd think it would be easy to get funding to dig around for prothean artifacts. Especially ones that may have been referenced in some star chart in Palaven Temple.'_

Frankly, it sounded like a wild varren chase if ever he'd heard of one.

"Arca Monolith?" he re-read the proposal abstract and almost tossed the datapad aside. Instead, he quickly scrolled through the pages of dense technical translations and starchartery. Where was Relay 314, anyway? There. He finally found an attached map of current relay lines. And 314 was… in the middle of nowhere, leading nowhere.

"_Tch_."

There was no all-consuming rush, then. Desolas made a mental note to pass the report along a little later. It would just have to creep up along the usual channels. It was doubtful General Orinia would be interested in sticking her neck out to get some new relay opened. The female was far too conservative. But in the future? Who knew? It might be a real career builder, and what was 'good for the tribe was good for the turian' as the old saying went. The Hierarchy was always looking for more artifacts, even if this particular proposal was a bit of a long shot.

* * *

Ujon.

Planet Camala, Indris System.

Batarian Hegemony.

Private First-class Ka'hairal Balak could smell it in the air: trouble.

This whole situation was trouble. It was a reactor about to melt down. Every instinct he had was at war with the fact that, if he tried to get the hell out of this jam, he was likely to end up shot by his own comrades in arms. Basically, it was looking more and more like he was right and truly fucked.

"Masks!" the battalion commander screamed over the dim below. "Get ready, you maggots!"

"Holy Pillars, protect us," another batarian draftee murmured to himself as he lowered the helmet faceplate down and tightened the NBC seals. "Protect us and guide us through this trial..."

"You put your faith in the Pillars," another tried to joke, raising his 'Executioner' Shotgun, the Batarian State Arms logo still proudly stamped on the side. "I'll put my faith in this."

Balak remained silent. It was enough to try and keep from vomiting or otherwise showing his anxiety.

"WWWRROOOO!" the roar came up from below.

Packed into the Plaza of Glory, stretching out line an angry tide, thousands of Batarians – and even a few other Terminus species, including a few krogan according to intel – were marching and protesting, waving signs. Even if the outlying military outposts in the arid wastes surrounding the capital did show up, they would still be outnumbered a hundred to one… or that's what it looked and felt like at least. Balak could hardly believe there were that many low-class batarians on the planet much less in just one city.

But there were.

There were thousands of them. Thousands of indentured servants. Thousands of angry low-class batarians who forgot their place in the system. Probably even a couple hundred slaves who somehow managed to slip out and join the riot. Who knew how many were armed? Who knew how many actual mercenaries and pirates had decided to join in, just on the off chance that they could loot some of the city in the chaos? It was a mess. It was a nightmare.

It was a gods damned Caste War.

"WWWWRROOOO!"

The protests of thousands muddled into a deafening, indistinct roar.

Down in the Plaza, a line of armed and armored Batarian Internal Forces men tried to keep the crowd back and away from the gates to the upper tier… where all the wealthy citizens of Camala had their estates and their slaves and their _private community_. Those same esteemed high-class batarians were – Balak had no doubt – cowering in their suites and wine cellars, making desperate calls to every Colonel and Commander and Captain and Admiral they could think of. All to put more bodies between themselves and the angry horde that, whipped into a mad frenzy, had finally decided to march on them.

Balak could see brief, tumbling little lights as flaming bottles arched through the air. That was a new surprise. The incendiary cocktails exploded amid the thin black line of guards below, and together with the press of bodies… it was only a matter of time before something began to bend… or break.

It started with one guard, the shoulder of his hardsuit on fire, throwing down his riot shield.

The others next to him, seeing him panic, began to falter. Waver. Finally, one stepped back.

Another ran.

There was no bellow of "fire!" like in the heroic vids distributed by the Department of Information Control. Someone just did it. And then everyone was doing it. Balak heard the steady crack-crack of rifle fire. A gas grenade exploded in the air over the protestors. Then everything seemed to move around him, pushing him forward and into the nightmare. Clutching his own shotgun close to his chest, he tried to steel his nerves. The Internal Forces were failing. Who the fuck knew what the other External Forces units were doing or where they were. There was nothing TO do. Except to go along with it and try and survive.

A sound like a snapfly buzzed Balak's right ear.

He turned his head, trying to find the source of the noise, and saw the soldier who had been praying before. There was a hole in his helmet. A clean hole. The inside of his helmet was just an indistinguishable mess of bright red blood and mangled orange skin. Dead. Dead, but still unable to fall because of the press of bodies, the deceased batarian soldier was jostled forward like a ragdoll.

"Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me." Balak tasted something hot and acidic in his mouth and forced it back down.

"GO! Go! Go!" Someone was screaming. It was impossible to tell who.

"WWWWRROOOO!" the protestors roared, welcoming them with an enraged serenade. The crack-crack of mass effect rounds exploded everywhere. Balak's unit rushed into and through the breaking line of Internal Forces men. Where their Batallion Commander had gone, Balak couldn't begin to guess.

There were no more orders; no more discipline; just everyone howling at everyone else. There was only kill or be killed, torn apart by the mob. Lowering his shotgun into the closest mass of angry faces, Ka'hairal Balak squeezed the trigger… and prayed.

In the haze of it all, the confusion and the terror, you could hardly blame him for not noticing when another battle overhead decided the fate of the colony. In low orbit, the new Hensa-class cruiser _Hatre_, named after Camala's own main port city, had just finished firing on select ground targets. A Hegemony-loyalist frigate, attempting to either stop the rebelling cruiser or fulfill the Governor's final, mad orders to bombard the city, quickly succumbed to the larger ship's guns. With the capital in turmoil and most of the local military leadership dead, either from bombardment or convenient _accidents_, the garrison fell within the hour.

Camala – the Hegemony's latest and greatest source of mined and processed eezo – was in open and defiant revolt.


	2. Chapter 2

.

* * *

(2)

* * *

Arcturus

Whatever or where-ever 'Arcturus' even _was,_ Ilena Thanoptis wasn't sure, exactly but that was the name of the place. She hadn't gotten any sort of good look at it on the flight over, so who knew if it was a space station or a ground-base or a settlement or what. They had pretty much marched her right off the ship and into a holding cell they called a room. Annoyingly, Daro'Xen, better known as 'Buckethead,' had also been escorted away… to a private meeting. Well, that was fine. Who needed private meetings anyway!

Anyway, Arcturus.

As far as Ilena could tell, it was mostly one big lab.

One exceedingly huge lab.

Basically, it was like her sister Rana's paradise or something. Escorted over, she had seen her first humans walking around bereft of their armor. They were, just as expected, pretty darn asari-like. Moreso than any other species Ilena could recall seeing or hearing about. It reminded her of the crazy old stories about horny Green-Skinned Space Hunks from Piares. Back when Asari hadn't even discovered that Piares was just a lifeless desert planet, many asari had believed that there were aliens living there with extraordinary powers and that they had visited Thessia in ancient times… mostly to get laid, but also to build the occasional pyramid. Actually, why not have both?

Humans reminded her of that. Except they were mostly peach, and a few sorta brown, and one was really dark black. So no green! It was so weird.

"Am I done, yet?" she asked, lowering her arm after another biotic push. She was also without her old mercenary hardsuit. Like her omnitool, it had been confiscated. That left only her biotic amp, which, it turns out; the humans had wanted to run tests on.

"Yes, I believe that is sufficient. Come on out."

The humans spoke with a strange accent, but she was one of the humans in charge of the sprawling lab facility. Not like you could easily tell just by looking at her. There were no tattoos or facial paint to mark her rank. She wore the same white and drab-green coat as every other human working here. Among krogan, probably even bookish learny-types of krogan, the big ones were usually the oldest and the ones in charge. This human was probably one of the shortest Ilena had seen, so size clearly wasn't much of a factor. On the other hand, she had some very pretty short brown hair.

"Hey, look who's here!" Ilena caught sight of another familiar face. Or at least she thought it was a familiar face. It was more like a familiar mask. She bolted over to the quarian. "Buckethead!"

"Don't even think about it." Daro held up a three-fingered hand to block the attempted hug. "And don't call me Buckethead, Idiot."

"I will if you stop calling me an Idiot. Buckethead."

Daro'Xen sniffed disdainfully. "A vorcha by another other name would still smell as bad."

"Like you know what anything smells like in there." Ilena finger-flicked the quarian's visor. Grinning at the fuming quarian woman – once a captive, but now free of her cuffs and restraints – Ilena faced the human woman standing a short distance away. She had a sort-of omnitool of her own and was tapping away at it. The result was a detailed series of scans projected into the air around the woman.

"Did you get what you wanted?" Ilena asked her.

"Ah, yes. These results are _quite_ extraordinary." The brown-haired human declared with the sort of introverted glee to make a salarian geneticist proud. "Not only is it pleasure to have a _cooperative_ biotic specimen, _for once_, but one with existing training! This exactly what we were looking for."

"Doctor Vahlen," Daro'Xen said, also taking in the data floating through the air in holo-form. "Those are scans of eezo nodules, aren't they? But the resolution is incredible…"

"We have 'experience' in mapping out and constructing micro-structures," Vahlen replied, her eyes never leaving the data stream. "Your biotic abilities are intriguing, and while the underlying mechanism for their use is well characterized, so far every biotic we have studied has had a structurally different node-network. Not just different across species, but different even in otherwise identical subjects. Traditional exposure in-utero to induce biotics is both undesirable and inefficient. In order to be reproducible, we need a template E-Zero node-network that can be produced reliably via MELD."

Ilena crossed her arms and nodded slowly. "I see. Yes."

"Did you understand even half of that?" Daro growled.

"Three-fourths," Ilena answered with a shrug.

Daro'Xen shook her head and brushed past her fellow alien. "So that's what they had you doing…"

"What about you?" Ilena asked. It had been a little while since they were last together, back on the human ship. "I guess you found out what they want you for?"

"I will be working here." The quarian swept her hand towards the lab complex that stretched out before them. It was just one level of several devoted to research, but just this one was already sizeable. It was a long rectangular bay, three stories tall and wide-open in the center. The other floors were built around the central square and branched off into different wings.

"They have a research division working on arc throwers to combat the geth," Daro explained. "Once we finish with that, I think I can also find some fascinating work being done in cyberwarfare and cybernetics. Though I think these humans also want to groom me to be their way into opening relations with the Migrant Fleet..."

"The Migrant Fleet?" Ilena asked. "Why, though? Like you said, they don't use mass effect stuff. Why bother?"

"Idiot," Daro hissed. "I said, or I meant, that they don't rely on mass effect technology. 'Rely.' I believe they still plan to make use of it, and maybe even the relay network, but only once they feel it is safe."

As an asari, Ilena felt she had to stand up for the system her species had spearheaded. "It's perfectly safe!"

"Safe to use, yes, but crawling – infested even – with other races…" Daro'Xen chuckled. "We quarians were also rather cautious about contacting aliens, did you know that? But we ultimately had no choice. There was no alternative to mass effect technology. So, despite our reservations, we used it and ended up meeting your people… and the turians and the salarians. We thought we had found friends and allies. I doubt many quarians then knew you would abandon us to extinction at the hands of the geth. I doubt many quarians then knew you would turn us into outcasts and pariahs, without a home of our own."

Ilena wasn't sure what to say to the angry young quarian.

"Yeah, our bad," she muttered, shrugging.

Daro'Xen did not seem amused.

"Yes, _your bad_," she agreed, after a second or two, but even her annoyance quickly ebbed away as she considered the future. "The humans don't want to reveal themselves just yet. I can understand their caution. Better yet, I can _use_ it… the quarian people can use it! With the gifts the humans can give me – give us, us I mean – the possibilities are endless! No quarian will ever return from a pilgrimage with a greater gift then I will. Maybe even a seat on the Board itself won't be out of the question!"

She said it softly and tapped her fingertips together, "Admiral Xen… yes, I like the sound of that."

"I think you're over-reacting," Ilena said, her eyes drawn to the brown-haired human's holograms and the outlined network of eezo nodes that made Ilena the awesome biotic commando she was. "Things aren't close to that bad. What do the humans have to hide from everyone else?"

Her eyes were definitely _not_ also drawn to the human's rear, as nice as that also was.

"Over-reacting, really?" Daro asked, and even through the opaque helmet, it seemed she was rolling her eyes. "These humans have technology the likes of which no one has seen in Citadel Space. How many hours do you think will pass between first contact – when everyone else learns what they suddenly _don't_ have but always wanted – and when the salarians get it into their heads to start plotting to send STG teams to steal as much as they can get away with? How long before your turian friends see the threat of a new potential enemy and start throwing their weight around? That isn't even getting into what they can do with their minds and the fear that will cause, especially among your people, asari. Do you really think these humans, more advanced than we are in many fields, will accept being a junior member of your Citadel without representation on the Council?"

Daro'Xen was ticking off her arguments on her fingers.

"From what you've seen of their secretive nature, do you think they'll let Spectres stomp around their space and on their ships? And how long before your former friends among the raiders and slavers start pouring in from the Terminus Systems? You can't expect them to want to throw themselves into the mess you Citadel species made without testing the waters first. Like it or not, there are some real pros to _never_ opening that proverbial airlock."

"Yeah… alright, _maybe_… but you have to admit you have a pretty biased way of looking at it," Ilena argued, pointing at the young quarian engineer.

"My account may be a _little_ colored by quarian history and experiences, I'll admit," Daro'Xen replied, unashamed of that fact. "But just like we were ostracized and ultimately abandoned due to our research into the geth, and our way of life, how do you think the Council will react to a species that has violated those same taboos? A species that has even genetically engineered and re-invented itself?"

Before Ilena could ask what she meant, Daro pointed to Doctor Vahlen.

"That human there," she said, lowering her voice a little. "She doesn't look it, but she's two hundred years old."

"So?"

"Most species aren't like you… or the krogan," Daro'Xen reminded her. "We don't live hundreds of years, and certainly not without some physical sign of aging. Look at that human over there, and that one." She pointed to a few other busy humans around the lab. "They all look around the same age, provided humans have the same signs of age that most species, even asari, do. That's just the obvious change they've made to themselves. Who knows what else has been done under the surface?"

"Come on, they probably just age slowly, like us." Ilena grinned and placed her hands on her hips. "Or they have weird bodies, like the krogan. See? Simple explanations! No need for crazy conspiracies about-"

"We don't age anymore," Doctor Vahlen interrupted, despite still being busy interacting with her new research.

"Wha?"

"Or, to be more exact, our projected lifespans are in the thousands of cycles," she brown-haired researcher continued, engrossed in her work but not so much that she couldn't overhear the conversation the aliens had had. "And, yes, this is due to genetic engineering. Miss Xen and I have already discussed using our expertise to alleviate the suffering of her people. I already have a team looking into what a larger research effort would require."

"There you go," Daro chimed in.

"Thousands of cycles?" Ilena asked, cupping her right ear with her hand. "Did I hear that right?"

"Thousands of your cycles, yes," Vahlen repeated. Using her finger, she called up the holographic projection of another human. "You'll have to excuse us. Miss Xen? I'd like to introduce you to a colleague of mine."

"Of course," Daro'Xen complied, sounding rather quite chipper with her new circumstances.

Someone's pilgrimage had certainly taken an unexpected turn.

"Try not to do anything stupid and get killed, Idiot," Daro said in passing as she walked away.

"Try not to marry your omnitool, Buckethead!" Ilena called back to her.

Another familiar looking human, meanwhile, had entered the lab and started walking over, wearing a white and gray uniform with a definite and distinct military trim.

"Anna," Doctor Vahlen said as she passed the other woman.

"Doctor," Annabel Shepard replied, politely, dipping her head as she passed Vahlen, her hands in her pants pockets. She walked up to Ilena and held out her hand.

"Err." Ilena stared at the hand for a second, before sticking out her own. "Hand-shake! See? I _have_ been paying attention."

"That you have," Shepard agreed, shaking the asari's hand gently. "I trust my grandmother wasn't too hard on you? She used to do interrogations back in the day."

"_Nah!_ She was as sweet as a salarian polliwog. Wait! Grand…?" Ilena gaped for a second, craning her neck to catch one last parting look at Vahlen and Daro'Xen as they left. Mostly at the former, and to be more exact, mostly the former's cute butt. "You meant that _literally?_ Aww! I was ogling your grandmother! Aww!" Ilena gagged. "That's like checking out someone's _Matriarch!_"

"As in a Matriarch I'd Like to F-"

"Like that," Ilena cut her off with a shudder. "Wait!" She poked the human in the chest, at the collar. "You aren't some old grandmother, too, are you?"

Annabel Shepard raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her. "Maybe."

"You are!" the former commando exclaimed, shaking her head. "I've changed my mind. You humans are more like krogan than asari. Why were you so interested in my biotics, anyway? I remember back on that ice planet-"

"That wasn't biotics," Shepard interrupted her. "I don't have any eezo in my body."

"So you did that without eezo?" Ilena asked, now even more confused than normal. "Without biotics? I mean, I guess I never heard of anyone doing… what you did to Commander Sederis… but I'd just assumed… I thought you were an asari at the time, so maybe it was some sort of mind meld, but you have to touch someone for that, so… what was it?"

Ilena narrowed her eyes at the human as one terrible possibility presented itself. "Are you a wizard?"

"We call it psionics," the Lieutenant answered, deadpan. "Another reason for our exploration of Citadel Space is to identify if any other races have the same psionic potential we do."

"Well look no further!" Ilena declared, pointing proudly at herself with her thumb. "Your long search has ended! I can meld with you! Sure! Just light some candles, buy me dinner, put on some mood music…"

"Let's not." Lieutenant Shepard motioned for her to follow. "Anyway, we can talk more about psionics later. For now, take a walk with me."

"Are we headed for an airlock?"

"No."

"You're not going to dump me out in space now that you don't need me?"

"No."

"…is this a _date?_"

"**NO.**"

* * *

"Batarians?" Ilena asked, staring up at the holo-map.

It showed known relay routes near Terminus Space and the Batarian Hegemony. Notably, it did **not** show where human space was, but it didn't take a genius to guess it had to be close by. Which only left a billion or so possible stars where she could currently be… provided Arcturus was even _in_ human space. It could just as easily be in the middle of space or around a rogue planet or in the middle of a gas giant or underwater on an ice moon. Lots of people built secret bases on ice moons.

"One of our ongoing operations in Citadel Space is to deal with the Batarian Hegemony," Anna Shepard explained, taking a seat at the long table that dominated the conference room. "We'd rather not have a hostile power in this region of space, and as something of a rogue nation, the Hegemony also makes for a useful foothold into the rest of the galaxy. Let's see… this is the star, right here."

She pointed in the rough direction of the star chart, and one highlighted in yellow.

"This is the Indris System. We've done some work supporting a local insurgency that has recently taken over the planet and the eezo mines and refineries there. I've been told they're poised to take over the entire star system. We want this to be the beginning of the end for the Hegemony, the Batarian caste system, and their slave markets."

"What does this have to do with me?" Ilena asked, feeling a little out of her element. This wasn't the hot date she'd _sort of_ been hoping for... if only to feed her ego.

"You've noticed that we try and impersonate asari when we go out into the field," Shepard reminded her.

Ilena nodded. "You do look at lot like us with a suit on."

"We're reaching the limits of what we can do with just disguised operatives and… other things," Annabel admitted to her, though it also sounded a bit rehearsed. Maybe she was just giving the pitch for someone else? And there it was. "Central wants to see if you can be used to be the front-woman for a group we've considered forming. Since we can't show our faces publicly, that's what you'll be for. All it takes is one of us _actually being_ an asari for the rest of us to pass off as them. We can fool bioscanners more easily than the mark-one eyeball."

"So basically I just pretend I'm in charge so you can work in the background?" Ilena asked, sitting down as well as the holomap floated overhead.

"Basically," Shepard answered, and then added, almost as an after-thought, "You'll be wealthy and powerful."

"Hmmm. I like wealthy," Ilena replied, holding out her hands, palm up, as if testing the weight of something. "Oh. And I like powerful, too. In fact, wait! Those are two of my favorite things! Throw in some more of that 'schnitzel with noodles' I had the other day and I'm your girl!"

The lieutenant smirked. "I had a feeling you'd be receptive."

"That and I'd rather not dwell on what you'd do with me if I _didn't_ make myself useful," Ilena pointed out. "So: what's this front you want me to pretend to be in charge of?"

"A Private Security Group about to make their mark on the soon-to-be batarian civil war," Shepard answered. "We're thinking of calling it _Eclipse_."

* * *

"These are lies of course. Simply lies. I blame the ones on the extranet who speculate without knowing – without having any real intelligence or information – they are deceptive. I will say this one more time, so it is clear to all. We continue to hold the spaceport. We have Ujon and we have restored order to all but an insignificant part of the city. There are NO rebels there. There are NO rebels in the Hegemony! What we have heard of is merely the work of a small number of malcontents, pirates and terrorists."

The news vid of the Hegemony's Department of Information Control's Vice-Minister smoothly skipped forward. Just like before, the gold-skinned batarian seemed both unflappably arrogant and perpetually angry, scowling at the camera and the handful of Citadel journalists who had the rare honor of being invited into the Hegemony to ask about 'pressing affairs' within the secretive state. This time, his well-dressed ire was directed at yet another member of the audience.

One that wasn't a "reporter" for the Department of Information Control.

"What have I told you?" the vice-minister barked, angrily pounding his podium, maybe wishing it was actually the head of some nosy foreign journalist. "The rebels do not hold the Ujon Spaceport! They do not hold any part of Camala! We slaughtered them in the spaceport. They are out of Ujon International Spaceport. The force that was in the airport, this force was destroyed. Their casualties and bodies were many."

"So there _was_ a major force overrunning the spaceport?" a voice, probably asari, called out.

"Do not repeat the lies of liars. Do not become like them," the vice-minister admonished the unseen reporter, wagging his finger at her. "Once again, I blame troublemakers on the extranet for spreading falsehoods before anyone can ascertain what has taken place. Please, make sure of what you say and do not play such a role."

Another time-skip forward and the vice-minister was now looming over the podium like a simmering volcano, his hands clutching the sides of the platform as if to strangle it. There were little beads of sweat trickling down the ridges over his upper pair of eyes.

"What surrenders? Where did this footage come from?" he asked, accusingly. "I have seen it. Yes. We have seen it. They are batarians, yes, but those are not Hegemony soldiers at all. Where did they bring them from? Where was this elaborate hoax filmed? We will find out. Next question."

He pointed down at the audience.

"Have the terrorists all been destroyed?" the question was asked by a distinctly batarian flavored accent. "Or did some flee?"

"They fled. The louts fled. Indeed, concerning the fighting waged by the heroes of the Internal Security Forces, one amazing thing really is the cowardice of the pirates and troublemakers. We had not anticipated this."

The vid froze as the vice-minister started to pick another reporter, no doubt one of the many there given their questions beforehand and in the employ of Information Control. He clearly looked to have had his fill of the foreigners intruding on his theater…

Pissing in his pool, as the salarian saying went.

"Suffice to say, I hardly need the STG to tell me this is a tightly-coiled load of _drak_."

Ambassador Soulon retracted his long, thin needle-utensil from the holovid's hepatic pause button. Nimbly twirling it through his fingers, the salarian councilor finally dipped it down into a shallow bowl. The sharpened tip pierced a white, squirming grub and then brought it up into the air. Still squirming, impaled on the needle, it was then dipped in a smaller, shallow bowl of spicy red sauce.

Soulon brought the grub to his lips and placed the whole thing in his mouth, savoring the flavor as he chewed.

"Khar'shan," he mused, but only after finishing his treat. "What a mud hole. I spent four cycles there as part of my service to creche and country. I suppose it wasn't as bad as volunteering to cater to some petty warlord in the Terminus, but it comes close."

Silence greeted his assessment of his galactic neighbor, and the esteemed councilor sighed.

"So," he continued, deftly spinning the ceramic needle between his fingers. "What does the STG have for me today? That I haven't heard on the vids already? Give me something juicy to surprise Tevos and Vitus."

"Councilor, the situation on Camala is much worse than the general population assumes," the response came from a stiff-necked (and for a salarian, a stiff neck was quite a feat) STG operative by the name of Dismet. He was Task Group born and bred, having served only a year in the military before being shuffled off to join the clandestine brotherhood of the STG. Unfortunately, he was still young and apparently incapable of accepting the command to be 'at ease.'

Or maybe his stuffy discomfort came from being in the same room as uncooked valla-worms? Most salarians who could stomach the ammonia-like flavor ate them boiled, or maybe fried and served on a bed of algae with gold sauce. That was how it was done on Sur'kesh, but not on Mannovai. On Mannovai they were eaten raw, and savored for all their aromatic glory. It was all quite heady. That they discomforted salarians from the homeworld was just a minor plus.

"I already know the entire planet has fallen, not just the spaceport," Soulon said, eyes closed as he speared another grub without even bothering to look. "I'm sure Tevos knows it as well. I want something juicy. _Juicy_. Something the asari don't know yet."

Captain Dismet almost cracked a smile.

"Are the asari aware of the defection of no less than two batarian cruisers?" the operative asked. "Do they have this?"

He held up a data pad, keyed a sequence, and footage of a space battle filled the air. Soulon didn't lean forward, but he did open his eyes and keep them fixed on the scene. The cruiser was a _Hansa_-class, one of the Hegemony's new modular cruisers. The name on the side read 'Hatre' if Soulon remembered his written batarian… and he did. It was named after one of Camala's cities.

The batarians were not exactly the galaxy's most esteemed shipwrights or sailors. Their fleet was mostly for policing the Hegemony and occasionally disciplining minor powers in the Terminus and Traverse. They had some old dreadnaughts, true, but the only new ships being built were all cruisers and frigates. It suited the Fleet's real mission profile, plus it was far cheaper and more economical for someone on the Hegemony's budget.

The Hansa's were the newest cruiser class, designed to have swappable sections so the same hull could be outfitted for different short or long-term missions. The design wasn't considered all that inspired, despite the premise, with three forward facing mass accelerators already outdated by salarian standards, and a haphazard GUARDIAN array due to the need to make sections of the ship swappable. Still, it made short work of the frigate that tried to engage it.

Soulon munched on another fat grub. "Tell me: the Captain of that ship is…?"

"Grisgo Tak," Dismet answered. "Graduated, Central Naval Academy 2702; part of the international Yahg Contact Expedition, 2705; awarded the Brass Chain for Merit. Executive Officer posting on the _Borshak_; participated in the capture of a pirate frigate, 2712… Ascended to Captaincy of the _Zemeny_, 2716; _Zemeny_ decommissioned and sold to quarians, 2724. Oversaw final shakedown of the _Hansa_, then reassigned to the _Hatre_. Added a sword to his brass chain with stars. And now, in 2730, he turns his guns on the frigate _Borta_ and joins the Camala rebels."

"Is he a Camala native?" Soulon asked, and just as quickly shook his head. "No. No, too obvious. Hegemony wouldn't post a captain with sympathies close to his home planet. Tak is the name... mountain caste?"

"Correct, sir." Dismet nodded. "Grisgo is part of the mountain caste."

It was the third highest caste in the tiered society of the Batarian Hegemony, below only cloud and heaven. Why would a sentient like that throw his lot in with a bunch of rebelling slaves and servants? Did he think to gain a position of power on Camala? Or had he simply been bought by someone with even greater influence? Hegemony politics were both convoluted and schizophrenic. Salarians as a rule loved deciphering complexity, but not so much when that complexity was driven by emotion and irrationality, two aspects that always seemed to flavor everything batarian.

"You mentioned two ships?"

"The other cruiser is the Idenna. We believe the captain, one Sorth'horo Varat, was killed by his subordinates, who then seized control of the ship. Communications intercepts were, unfortunately, impossible given our resources in-system at the time."

"A shame," Councilor Soulon stated, the tip of his spearing needle again hovering threateningly over his bowl of grubs. He watched again as the _Hatre_ destroyed the _Borta_.

It was clear that the frigate was about to fire down at the planet's surface.

Had some madman actually ordered a bombardment of the city, even in the throes of rebellion as it was? Soulon found he couldn't exactly fault the _Hatre_ or Captain Grisgo for reacting as they did. A frigate's guns were meager, as starships went, but they could rightly devastate an urban area. There were many ways to deal with riots and protestors, after all. Most didn't resort to orbital bombardment… at least not right away.

"Batarians," he cursed, spearing another grub and then slathering it on hot sauce. "What a mess they've made. So the rebels have the planet, plus two cruisers, plus the orbital infrastructure… which seems essentially intact. I'm starting to get the feeling in my stomach that this isn't something that will blow over. At least not altogether."

"Sir?" Captain Dismet asked.

"We will have to wait and see what the batarian ambassador has to say," Soulon concluded, nipping the head off the grub and spilling a bit of white juice mixed with hot sauce on his lower lip. "The question is if this caste rebellion on Camala will remain localized… or spread. But this information will do, for now. I'm quite certain that even Tevos will be at least a _little_ surprised when I bring this to the table. Is the rest of the report routine, or is there more, Captain?"

"Sir," Dismet said, keying up a hologram of a large yellow-gold gas giant. "This is Hiba, the fourth planet in the Indris system." A cylindrical space station appeared in blue brackets, tiny against the gas giant. There was no zoom, and Soulon had to stare to get a good look at what he was supposed to see there. "What you are looking at is Kaver Station. It was the Hegemony's fortified position in the system. It was the nucleus if their defense of Indris. While Intel is sketchy, we believe there were at least four other ships holding around the station."

"And now?" Soulon prompted, motioning to STG man with his needle.

"Silence, sir." Dismet sounded… upset by that fact. "Total silence."

"Destroyed, then?"

"No, sir," the operative replied, shaking his head. "We believe the station to still be there. Maybe even the ships are there as well. But there have been no signals, no communication, no emissions or activity since the rebellion. There is a gap in our records… we didn't anticipate the Camala situation would explode so quickly and so suddenly… it could be Kaver and the ships there are waiting to see who comes out on top. At this time, we don't know, but it is an anomaly."

"So it is," Soulon admitted, balancing his needle-fork between his two index fingers. "Look into it, would you? Something about this situation on Camala seems… off. I believe someone in the Hegemony is making a power play, and stirring up a Caste War to achieve it. I can't say I dislike the idea, and there are some gains to be made, such as getting our hands on information about that mysterious 'Leviathan' the batarians secreted away, but that part of space is chaotic enough as it is already. As much of a mud hole Khar'shan is, it's _our_ mud hole."


	3. Chapter 3

.

* * *

(3)

* * *

Dates

CE + 580 = After Citadel

* * *

A hand batted down Ilena's own as it brushed her cheek. "Don't rub your eyes."

"You think I want to?" She waggled her fingers. "It's involuntary!"

Shepard scowled at her until the young asari finally sighed and placed her hands on her lap.

"Good," the lieutenant said, ducking one hand behind her back, retrieving an empty Elkoss-made machine pistol. She twirled it around to present Ilena with the handle. "The diagnostic should be finished any second now. Give it a try."

Ilena was familiar with the M-4 Shuriken. It wasn't the first gun she had ever fired, but it was the first one she had sprayed-and-prayed with. It was a cheap and common submachine gun, which was very convenient for most Terminus mercs and security types, since it was also rugged and reliable. The only down side was accuracy, but when it came to bullets, surely quantity had a quality all its own? Right?

Ilena grasped the weapon, and a series of faint green dots emerged on the corner of her eye.

A second later, and the dots vanished, replaced by a basic HUD, just like the type built into most military visors. It 'read' the gun in her hand, briefly traced a grid along her arm, and then did the same to Lieutenant Shepard and the rest of the room. It was collating data – just like an omnitool – when Shepard activated a bright light over her forearm: a floodlight. She shined it right into Ilena's face and the asari instinctively winced and tried to cover her eyes and face – now _that_ was involuntary – except the bright light was instantly filtered out.

"Don't **do** that," Ilena grumbled, lowering her arms and peering right into the blinding electrical light. So it came with a light filter, too? Shepard nodded, satisfied, and turned off the floodlight. Instead of a haze or glare, like normal, Ilena's eyes re-adjusted instantly.

Raising her hands out in front of her, one still holding onto the M-4 Shuriken, the range of vision and color that greeted her was… it was kind of _neat_.

"Asari are uniformly trichromatic, just like we used to be," Shepard explained, though Ilena was all too focused on re-examining herself through her new, improved eyes. "I'm betting that the rest, your optic nerve and the region of your brain that processes vision, were also similar enough to…"

"Wait!" Ilena announced, gasping. She sprang up to her feet and clasped Shepard by the shoulder, trying to shake the immovable rock-of-a-woman. "We have this thing where our eyes turn black when we meld! Please tell me you didn't get rid of the black-eyes thing!"

"Your eyes are still your eyes," the human assured her in her usual voice, calm and seemingly unconcerned. "The MELD modifications were to the optic nerve and to the retina."

"You have this, too, right?"

"A similar one, yes." Shepard nodded slowly. "We all do. Basic visual enhancement has been commonplace since the war, more than a hundred years ago."

Ilena leaned in closer to the human to try and get a good look at her eyes.

They were brown and didn't look odd or anything. It wasn't as if you could see where the retinal cap had been enhanced. Annabel Shepard's eyes blinked, and she gently pushed Ilena back. The human had called it an 'omni-tool for your eyes' and her leaders had insisted Ilena have it installed so they could remain in contact with their newest asset. No doubt it was also recording and transmitting whatever she saw… and _that_ thought somehow prompted her eyes to actually start recording. A flashing red dot appeared next to a series of brackets. Okay – there was the record feature – this was clearly going to take a little getting used to.

"So what can your eyes do that these can't?" Ilena asked and put on a mock frown. "And don't say lasers. Unless… _lasers_…?"

"No lasers," Shepard answered simply.

"So what then?"

"The only important thing is enhanced vision in infrared and ultraviolet," the human replied, pointing at her regular looking brown right eye. "Most humans you'll meet are functional tetrachromats, but doing to you what we've done to ourselves would involve more extensive changes that would take weeks. You might not like what you end up with, either. Most of our experience is in experimenting with dead asari, not living ones, so taking things slow is probably wise."

"I suppose that makes sense," Ilena agreed, though she did quietly take note of how her human companion evaded her question. If that was the 'only important thing' then what was the rest?

"In addition to the increased sensitivity and the interactive overlay, the Reactive Pupils mod should significantly improve your aim. That was why this gene-mod was first developed."

"Putting more bullets in things is always a plus," Ilena agreed, nodding sagely. "Nature abhors waste. And a vacuum. Which is why we dump trash in space."

Shepard seemed momentarily speechless at that.

"Let's go shoot something!" Ilena declared, not giving the human too long to ponder her wisdom. "This ship has to have a firing range or some prisoner cells, right!"

"There is an area, yes," Shepard answered, catching up with the asari's change of topic. She gestured for Ilena to follow her out of the medical bay. "I'll make the arrangements… if you've done what you promised to do…?"

"Eclipse, of course," Ilena readily agreed. "I looked over the roster and added some girls I know. Not necessarily girls I've worked with, but ones I know. But are you sure we can get away with pretending Commander Sederis is alive? I mean-" Ilena shuddered as she recalled the vacant, drooling husk that had been Jona Sederis post-betrayal. "-is she even alive? I'm not sure whether hearing 'yes' or 'no' will be more terrifying or more reassuring."

"I absorbed her relevant information before she expired," the lieutenant stated plainly.

"So you really _did_ eat her brain?" Ilena asked, trailing behind the human. "Using that psionics, thing? You aren't… addicted to melding with others or anything, are you?"

"It isn't melding," Shepard replied as the pair walked down one of the many silver and white halls that made up the human ship. Ilena caught sight of another human, this one trailed by one of the little skittering asarioids (humanoid?) that she had heard called 'sectoid.'The two pairs passed by, Ilena staring openly, but the human and sectoid were seemingly oblivious.

"_That's _a mind meld," she lieutenant said, pointing back at the pair. "A low level one, anyway, used to exchange information."

"So, wait, because this isn't really all that clear!" Ilena took a few long strides to get ahead of her human keeper, motioning for her to stop for a second. Shepard did, and the asari held up her hands and hooked her index fingers together to indicate intimacy.

"So are those two…?" she asked, leadingly, but Shepard only stared at her strange hand-gesture. "You know?"

"Friends?" the human guessed.

"NO!" Ilena thought briefly about making a lewd but unmistakable gesture instead, but decided against it. "Are they a couple or something?"

"A… couple…?" Shepard's face did something funny. It stared to smile. She almost laughed. _Almost_. "No," she replied, coughing into her hand to compose herself. "With a sectoid? No. It isn't even possible. They're all clones."

"You clone them!" Ilena blurted out in shock.

The human shrugged. "They'd be extinct if we didn't."

"Are they your servants or something?" It was a question that had been on Ilena's mind for a while, since she had started seeing the 'little men' around on the human base called 'Arcturus.' Shepard and the others had mentioned the batarian caste system in their plans, and there was no doubt they sounded like the disapproved of it.

"Sectoids were one of a number of alien species that invaded Earth… our homeworld… in the past," Shepard explained, crossing her arms unhappily at having to go into more detail. "They were the servants of another species, a psionic one, and when we defeated their masters, we took their place. It was really a lot more complicated than that, but what you need to know is that sectoids… they're like VIs. That's a good comparison, I think. They're like organic VIs, except while a VI processes digital information they can process and retain psionic information instead."

Ilena could understand that… sort of. "So they aren't sapient?"

"If we dropped the lot of them on a planet somewhere to live free, they'd all stand around until they died." Annabel put a hand on Ilena's back and pushed her forward. "They can think, but not feel, react but not act."

"It just seems odd is all," the asari argued. Still: 'organic' VIs? There were some crazy crackpot theories that the Keepers on the Citadel were like that, but they were unobtrusive enough and worked to the benefit of everyone. Everyone on the Citadel, anyway. Ilena got the feeling that that these sectoids wouldn't been seen the same way, if only because they only served races capable of this 'psionic' thing, and it was still unclear as to what it even was.

"Do humans mind-meld with one another, or just with those sectoids?" she asked, instead.

"We can meld, but it isn't like asari melding."

"Then what is it like?"

"In combat, a meld can be used to coordinate on attack or defense." A glowing energy-field of a door opened, revealing a ramp down to the hangar. "You feel what everyone else is doing, you know what target everyone wants to bring down first, where the greatest threat is coming from, and you can see it all in your mind's eye. Some people call it 'squadsight' …another way to describe is that we can become networked-individuals."

It sounded sort of like geth.

"Like that, huh?" Ilena tried to imagine a group of asari doing the same thing. Well, to start with, they'd all have to be touching or at least holding hands. That would make combat kind of awkward. Unless maybe it caused the enemy to laugh himself to death. The image of a squad of asari commandos, all holding hands as they charged forward… oh yes. _Terrifying_.

No, it wouldn't work anyway. No asari, no matter _how_ slutty, could meld on the fly like that.

Which was to say the biggest problem was that the meld simply didn't work that way to begin with; an asari could pick up experiences and memories by connecting and sync-ing up the two nervous systems involved but it wasn't exact and it wasn't like some 'real-time' video feed or whatever. So this psionics thing was similar… but different. It also sounded a lot like that particular _thing_ most asari didn't like to talk or think about.

"So you don't do it for… you know…" Ilena ribbed the human with her elbow. "You know!"

Shepard rolled her eyes.

"I'll find out sooner or later!" Ilena vowed. "You can't keep me in the dark-"

"Look, guns."

"Guns!" The asari cried, bounding happily over to the small shooting range set up next to the hangar, partly separated by some sort of transparent screen. There were two armored humans present, both female.

"This is Sergeant Liacouras and Corporal Kim," Shepard made quick introductions, gesturing to the dark skinned human first, then the lighter skinned one. "They'll be part of my unit within Eclipse."

Ilena shook hands with the two in the human fashion she had learned. These were two more humans pretending to be asari. The plan was for them to be a special 'enforcer' or bodyguard unit within Eclipse, making sure the organization stayed in line as it expanded ranks. For all intents and purposes they would just appear to be another all-asari commando group. Since money alone wasn't enough to get Eclipse off the ground, they would also help 'make a name' for the new security firm. Shepard assured her that they would be quite capable of earning Eclipse a _reputation_.

Which _probably_ meant more mind-flaying…

Goddess knows, some poor asari might even start to think Eclipse had a combat unit of murderous Ardat-Yakshi. The mere thought was scary enough. Those demons needed to touch you to destroy you. These human females could do it at a distance. It was like Ardat-Yakshi high-on-Minagen level Bad, and good-Goddess, Ilena hoped that wasn't an actual thing.

"_There's _a gun I haven't seen before," Ilena said, once introductions were over. One of the pretend-asari women had a fairly bog-standard ERCS Banshee assault rifle, but the other one… Ilena wasn't sure what that woman's gun was, but it was _sexy_.

It was roughly rectangular, a bit boxy like the Armax-made Crossfire, but wider and heavier looking, more like a shotgun than a slender rifle or carbine. It was silvery-white on top and a matte-black on the bottom and around the sights up top. The color alone led Ilena to guess that it was made out of the weird "alien alloy" (for lack of a better name, though maybe "human alloy" was the best term) that everything was made of around here. Most curious of all about the gun was the strange circular indentation near the front of what she assumed to be the barrel. It almost looked like someone had tried to punch a hole through the side of the gun.

"Sir?" Corporal Kim, the woman cradling the fancy looking weapon, asked her superior.

"That isn't anything," Shepard said, interposing herself between Ilena and the bemused corporal.

"Oh, that's something! Some kind of crazy human ray gun, isn't it!" The asari commando tried to step around Shepard, but she kept side-stepping to remain in the way. "Can I at least see what it does? What's the harm in that?"

"Maybe in the future," Shepard promised, placing a hand on Ilena's shoulder.

Ilena tried to move, but Shepard's hand was like a vice. A few seconds of trying to escape and she finally gave up, watching with resignation as corporal Kim left with the mysterious rifle/shotgun/BFG. It didn't look like any normal mass accelerator. Alas, seeing it in action was just not fated for today. Instead, Ilena was given another ERCS Banshee, along with a block of ammo.

It felt downright mundane compared to what-could-have-been or what-could-have-fired.

Under the watchful eyes of the three humans, two armored and one in some sort of duty uniform, Ilena got to try out her new MELD-enhanced eyes with a more familiar weapon. She still had little to no idea what MELD was, but she did quickly realize that Shepard hadn't been kidding about it improving her accuracy. The Banshee was a good rifle, but it had a bit of a spread over fifty meters in burst mode. With her new eyes, though, hitting moving targets downrange was… a lot easier. She seemed to focus much more quickly on things, her depth perception was better, and the eye-based HUD promised to do away with clip-on visors forever!

"-the batarian ambassador is approaching the Council now…"

"Is that… c-span?" Ilena asked, distracted from her practice.

One of the humans had an active omni-tool – the dark-skinned one, Liacouras, she recalled – and it was actually tuned to the Citadel News Network. Shepard only seemed to be paying cursory attention to it, but both Liacouras and Corporal Kim were glued to the transmission.

"The batarian ambassador is about to address the Council," Corporal Kim repeated and Ilena gave her a look. As if the broadcast hadn't said just that. "There's a running bet on what he'll say."

"A bet?" Ilena put the rifle down, flicking the safety back on, and meandered over. "I guess this _does_ involve us…"

"It very much does," Shepard agreed and stepped aside to make room for Ilena to join them. Liacouras's omni-tool was an asari model, orange tinted with flicks of gold, and it projected an image of a stern faced looking batarian.

Standing high above him were the projected images of the three Citadel Councilors: Tevos, an old bag-of-bones Matriarch who had represented the asari since _long_ before Ilena was born, Soulon, the only _fat salarian_ Ilena could remember seeing in her life, and Vitus, a dark and handsome turian with white face paint, all tall and stern looking but probably a real pyjack in bed. At least, that was her professional opinion of them. Honestly, aside from Tevos, Ilena didn't know anything much about the galaxy's Big Three. She'd become a bloodthirsty, ruthless mercenary in the Terminus to get _away_ from Citadel bullshit (and her parents).

"…my friends, Councilors," the batarian ambassador was mid-speech already. "Rest assured there is no crisis; _there is no rebellion_. I have testimonials from dozens of eyewitnesses. My aide has just returned from Camala. This 'rebellion' is just an elaborate fabrication on the part of malcontents. The Hegemony hesitates to even dignify these wild rumors. I have been sent merely to reiterate the facts on the ground so that our friends on the Council do not further waste their time."

"They're _still_ denying anything's wrong?" sergeant Liacouras asked with a laugh. "Wow. I lost _that_ bet."

"If there is no trouble in the Indris system, you would not object to an observer being sent?" Councilor Soulon asked, leadingly.

"The internal affairs of the Hegemony are just that: internal affairs," the batarian ambassador replied, a trace of heat to his voice. "Respectfully, we must insist that you continue to respect our sovereignty."

"Just as we would respectfully remind you, ambassador, that the Batarian Hegemony is a member of the Citadel," Tevos stated, sounding reproachful. "We have heard many troubling things about Camala. Is it true that Hegemony ships attempted to bombard the surface at any time during the demonstrations?"

"Ships were poised to strike at _terrorists_," the ambassador corrected her with a half-sniff half-snort.

"If you've lost control of the situation-" Councilor Vitus speculated, and there was a clear undertone of a threat. The turians were galactic peacekeepers, after all, and by all non-Hegemony accounts the Indris system was a little short on peace at the moment.

The batarian ambassador shifted uneasily before the towering Council holograms.

"Ships attempting to make incursions into Hegemony space will be stopped with all due prejudice and returned home," the ambassador promised. "Do not concern yourself with Camala or the Indris system, Councilor. _Councilors_. We have everything under control. We will continue to protect Hegemony citizens from the depredation of pirates and terrorists. Assistance is neither needed nor welcome."

"Nonetheless," Vitus continued, despite the brief interruption. "It is an option on the table. You can't say something like this hasn't been long in coming. You hold more than half your population in a state of bondage…"

"That is a spurious lie, a falsehood, and speciesist!" the ambassador snapped, bearing his nest of sharp batarian teeth in an angry growl. "The caste system is what defines us as batarian! All **true** batarians are content with their place in the social order! We will do away with our caste traditions when you eliminate the many degrees of citizenship within the Turian Hierarchy."

Vitus ignored the jab at the Hierarchy entirely. "So these malcontents are all, what?" He made air-quotes with his fingers. "False-batarians? Aliens in disguise?"

"Wouldn't that be a pleasant surprise, at the least?" Soulon quipped.

"Councilors, Ambassador, I know the galaxy as a whole would feel much safer if they knew _something_ was at least being done to examine the underlying cause of the 'terrorism' in Indris and on Camala," Tevos said, playing the moderate peacemaker. "To that effect, we believe it may be appropriate to send a Spectre to look into the situation… and to make a suggestion as to how it can be revolved… without bloodshed."

The batarian ambassador clamped down on his frustration and lowered his eyes.

"I am afraid the Hegemony must protest this intrusion into our affairs." Nonetheless, despite being afraid to do so, he made his objection crystal clear. "We will handle this matter. There is no need to divert a Council Spectre to sight-see on Camala." He balled his hands into fists and hammered them together. "Those… paltry few pirates who remain in-system will soon face the overwhelming might of the Hegemony! Watch and see what we do to enemies of the state, Councilors. We cannot stop you, so send your Spectre if you must… it will already be done by the time he arrives."

Even across the light-years, there was a merciless glare in the ambassador's four eyes.

"The examples will already be made."

* * *

"This is your helmet-" Shepard held out a strap-on visor, just the sort rendered redundant by Ilena's new eye-implants. Well, maybe it wasn't quite that bad, but it was extremely light: little more than a visor and a small mask to wear over the mouth and nose in case of depressurization. "-don't lose it."

"How come I have to wear this, while you guys get real helmets?" Ilena took the visor in her hands and glared down at it. It was pretty pithy protection for going into a firefight.

Shepard gave her a look the asari recognized as 'a little more exasperated than I was before I met you.'

"We need your face to be recognizable," the human answered, adding, "Remember?" for good measure. "You're going to be one of the major players in Eclipse and this operation is going to put Eclipse on the galactic map. When we leak footage of the attack to the extranet, it has to look like you're in charge. You're obviously an asari, and seeing you, everyone will believe we're asari as well."

"I get it; you need my pretty little face in front of the cameras!" Ilena held up the visor and grimaced. "But that won't do you any good if my face gets SHOT!"

Shepard smiled and patted the asari commando reassuringly on her shoulder. "Relax. We'll be leading the attack and soaking up most of the enemy's fire. Besides, while it isn't an armored helmet, what you've got there has its own little mass effect shield. As long as no one opens up on your face with a shotgun or sniper rifle, you'll be fine."

"Except this makes me look like I'm in charge, so anyone with half a brain will try and pick me off!"

"You have biotics, don't you?" Shepard reminded her. "Just keep your barrier up."

"Trust me, I will," Ilena replied, following Shepard as she met up with the rest of her team to practice for their assault. Seeing them all together, it really was impressive just how much they resembled an asari commando unit.

At least going purely by looks.

There were only six of them: six of these human women, wearing human hardsuit armor. Just like before, the armor looked a bit bulky compared to the normal suits commandos wore, but now, unlike on Noveria, Ilena knew why the armor looked like it did. These humans had powered armor: the additional bulk was due to some sort of strength and endurance enhancing fibers that mitigated the weight of the armor and weapons. Supposedly, before discovering mass effect technology, the humans hadn't relied on shields to deflect projectiles.

Instead, they had some sort of strange metal alloy that they used. They still used it in layered patches over their armor, with some sort of nanoweave between. Together with the artificial musculature, it made the hardsuits look bulky. Their profiles were still clearly asari and feminine, but they looked like those asari who were into weight-lifting. The addition of mass-effect-style kinetic barriers was apparently a very new addition to their arsenal.

Ilena glanced down at her own, identical, suit of powered armor.

It felt… strange. Anna had explained that was partly because most humans who wore the armor were also enhanced with some sort of bone-and-muscle gene mod. It made them stronger and able to heal faster… or something. Ilena wasn't exactly sure about the details and Shepard, as usual, had only given a basic level of information about it. First impressions were that it made them sort of krogan-like. Ilena knew that Shepard was strong – the human had easily pinned her in place with just a hand to the shoulder – but it seemed humans weren't naturally that way. It was yet another of their gene mods.

Despite living among them for some time, and learning that they were just as mortal and normal as any asari, the human proclivity for 'gene mods' had become a little unnerving. It wasn't as bad as if they had added extra arms or tentacles or something – though Shepard had been unusually shut-mouthed when Ilena had mentioned wondering where 'all the tentacles were at' – but it was still totally taboo technology in Citadel space, and for good reason. Or at least there was probably a good reason. Minor modification was all but universal in everyone's military forces, especially among the salarians, but extensive changes like this were something else entirely.

When Shepard talked about her muscle and bone modifications or her 'second heart' Ilena couldn't also help but think about the krogan… notsomuch because the humans were making themselves like Tuchanka's Finest, but because if the humans could make gene mods for themselves and even gene mods for asari like her, what was to stop them from doing it for other races? What if they got it in their heads to undo the genophage? Daro'Xen had seemed excited with the possibility that the humans could 'improve' on her fellow quarians and undo the physiological damage done by their galactic exile.

Just what could the humans do with this MELD stuff?

It didn't take a matriarch to see that there were some potentially scary stuff that could result. And where did it come from, anyway? There was still so little she really knew, and much less that she understood. Then there was that human she had seen with the mechanical arms and legs…

"Ilena," Shepard said, and the asari put aside her other thoughts.

"Yep?" the maiden asari chirped.

The lieutenant had her helmet on, concealing her identity. She and the other five humans looked identical, and the only way Ilena could tell them apart was the overlay built into her eyes. The HUD identified them based on some sort of IFF system. Shepard thus had her name floating close to her shoulder along with some other physiological data that Ilena didn't really understand.

"Today's practice will include psionics, so there are a few things you need to know," Anna warned her, holding pout her hand. A swirling cloud of purple… something… coalesced in her palm.

"Hey," Ilena felt the need to ask, "Why is it purple? Is that why your armor had the purple tint to it, too?"

"Why are your biotics blue?" Shepard asked instead of answering.

"Because…!" Ilena tapped a finger to her chin. "What was that again? I remember learning this in school… biotics appear blue-ish because of changes to refraction of light in the air or… something…" She shook her head, trying to forget all that wasted time in the academy. "Anyway, okay, so blue is biotics and purple is psionics! Color coded for our convenience!"

"That is exactly why we won't be using visible psi-attacks if possible," Shepard explained, clenching her fist and snuffing out the tiny psionic stormcloud. "But you need to know what you're seeing if we do end up having to use them. The first and most important thing to remember is that if you see a large 'pool' of purple psionics take form nearby, then you have to move out of it. Forget _whatever you're doing_ and make sure you keep outside of it. That is what we call a Rift and it is extremely dangerous to anyone with a weak mind. Understand?"

Ilena snapped her visor on and considered Shepard's question. Did she understand?

"Nope!"

Shepard glared at her. "You don't understand?"

"Not at all," Ilena admitted, "But if you're saying you can create a purple pool of doom and that I should avoid standing in said purple pool, then yes, I understand that better. It just sounds like a biotic singularity to me."

Anna looked like she wanted to try and explain things more, but finally decided that the asari at least had the gist of things. "Very well. Alright. Yes. Avoid the purple pool of doom."

"That's all you needed to say," Ilena replied with a grin. "What else? You have something like a singularity, so do you have things like biotic push or slam or barrier or warp?"

"No," Shepard replied, tapping the side of her helmet. "Remember, what you're seeing is really in your mind. Psionics is a mental power, first and foremost. Most of our attacks are directed at a target's mind, not his body. I suppose to an extent you'll just have to see what I mean first-hand. But before that, I need to warn you about psi-panic. This is the power we will be using most in our assault."

"Psi-panic?" Ilena asked. "You mean… you scare people?" She snapped her fingers, as if struck by inspiration. "So **that's** why I was so scared back on Noveria!"

"…I never used psi-panic on you," Shepard told her.

"No, no, no, I'm **pretty sure **you did," Ilena insisted. "So, tell me more about this psi-panic you used on me."

Shepard's expression, hidden behind her faceless helmet, was unreadable.

"Psi-panic," she explained, after a second of deciding whether or not to continue to argue with her new operative, "Put simply, is a technique we use to disorient a target with hallucinations and contradictory sensory data. A victim of psi-panic will be marked with a flashing red overlay on your visual HUD, just like a friendly will be blue, a normal enemy red, an unknown contact yellow and a mind-controlled target will be green. Be aware that, unlike mind controlled enemies, panicked ones will not act in a predictable way: the vast majority will drop their weapons and try to hide but some will go berserk and fire wildly at any perceived enemy, friend or foe. It is impossible to predict how a target will respond to panic, so plan accordingly."

"Question!" Ilena said, holding up hand, index finger extended. "Why don't you just mind control the whole ship? Then we could take it over without firing a single shot!"

Anna sighed. "It isn't quite that simple. The ship we're assaulting has hundreds of sapients aboard. We will be using mind control on one, to get our foot in the door so to speak, but unless the whole bridge crew can be captured all at the same time then what will happen is our assets will be questioned and relieved of duty. Imagine if we take over the captain's mind and then have him order his crew to turn on their allies. A few may go with the order, but most will question it and believe that their captain has lost his mind. Instead of going along with his commands, they will turn on him."

"Oh! I get it now," Ilena said, recalling what she knew about their target. "So… our real target isn't just to take over the ship?"

Shepard nodded, one of the few gestures that were unmistakable despite an all-concealing helmet.

"Exactly. Taking over the ship? That's just the superficial target we want everyone to believe… the thing – the man - we're _really after_ is…"

* * *

Harsa System

Admiral Kash'Raman sat back in his command chair, digesting the words of his esteemed caste-mates on the Batarian Security Directorate. They had been adamant about their demands regarding the rebellious vermin who had taken over Camala. All those identified as leaders or agitators within the assorted rebel movements were to be executed via exposure to vacuum, their bodies and the bodies of their friends and family put on display in orbit, stapled to the side of billboards designed by the Ministry of Propaganda. They would serve as a stark and terrifying example to those who defied the Hegemony. All others in the caste above earth-rank were to be enslaved. Those earth-ranked slaves who were involved were to be publicly executed… without compensation paid to their masters. It was a fitting punishment. A master who couldn't control his or her slave was a danger to the Hegemony. The caste-lords of Camala did not _deserve_ to be reimbursed for their losses.

It was Raman's honor to command the fleet that would bring this proper chastisement to Camala and the whole of the rebellious Indris system. From his command chair, the Admiral's lips curled at the thought of the massacre to come. Just as pleasurable was the thought of destroying the traitors who had dared to side with the rebels, Captain Grisgo chief among them. Sadly, the Captain's family outside Indris had vanished – no doubt the work of more troublemakers and agitators – leaving no one to pay for the man's treachery except the Captain himself. All too soon, he would taste the wrath of the Hegemony.

Scattered around the orbit of the gas giant Verush, a mighty fleet had assembled.

It was a grand procession: a dozen cruisers had been brought to bear with half as many frigate escorts. They were visible not just on the ship's command display but outside on projections of the space around the _Glorious Harsa_. The Admiral recognized the profile of the old cruiser _Sadrian_ flying abreast of the much newer _Pavux_. The former was over sixty years old, making quite antiquated by most race's standards. Not that an old ship could be ineffective… the Admiral's own flagship, the dreadnaught _Glorious Harsa_, was from _Sadrian_'s generation. Looking beyond just the Hegemony, many asari ships, such as the _Destiny Ascension_ itself, were hundreds of years old. The more investment was required to build a ship, such as a dreadnaught, the more incentive there was to continually upgrade it rather than replace it with a new design.

That was part of why the _Glorious Harsa_ had been chosen to lead the fleet recapturing Indris and Camala. What none outside the Hegemony's upper echelon knew was that the fleet was… not what it once had been, during the Hegemony's initial expansion into the stars. Technically… _publicly_… the Hegemony Fleet operated seven dreadnaught class vessels; the maximum allowed by the Treaty of Farixen.

What very few knew was that those seven dreadnaught vessels were not entirely functional.

Four of them were a hundred years old, of entirely obsolete designs and only in the dreadnaught-class due to weight. They were dreadnaughts on paper only. The Hegemony maintained them at mothball yards without any serious intention of ever actually staffing them or sending them into a fight. Most had been stripped of parts, so it was unlikely they could be reactivated and launched even in an emergency. That left three functional dreadnaughts to form the core of the Hegemony Fleet: the _Proud Untrel_, the _Victorious Vular_ and the _Glorious Harsa_, all named after core batarian star systems. All three were staffed and functional, but the _Untrel_ was of dubious usefulness due to its outdated design. It was the only one of its class and needed to be maintained separately. Given the expense, it was mostly assigned to sit in the system whose name it shared, guarding against pirates and waving the flag… but capable of little else.

That left only two real dreadnaughts to serve as fleet flags.

Still, it was more than enough to crush some worthless, caste-less rebel scum.

"Admiral!" a shout came from the bridge conn. "Code incoming from Directorate Command. Routing to you now!"

Kash'Raman grunted and checked his omni-tool. A moment later, and the encrypted data resolved into a message. It was just the message he had been waiting and expecting to hear. The meddlesome fools on the Citadel had been stonewalled by security around the Harsa mass relay. There would be no interference when the Hegemony retook Camala.

"Flag to all ships of the fleet," Raman growled. "Form up alongside. Once the last of the marine transports are in position, and the last of the troops aboard, we will proceed towards Indris. That is all."

* * *

NOTE: Log entries are not in chronological order

* * *

Daro'Xen's Personal Log

Entry 1:01:001

First entry.

My name is Daro'Xen nar Shellen. I very nearly typed 'I am being held' – which I am in a sense, but I cannot truly think of my situation as analogous to the mess I found myself in before. I have been abducted or maybe acquired by a hereto unknown race of sapients from beyond the rim of the Galactic Frontier. As it may be some time, even years, before I can contact another quarian, I have elected to start work on a modest journal to record my thoughts and impressions. Most certainly, everything I type is also being picked through by my new friends, but a journal like this is for peace of mind if not true privacy.

Rather than begin with exactly how I ended up in this situation, I will only say that I was on my pilgrimage when I ended up in the less than understanding care of a mercenary captain by the name of Jona Sederis. The woman was a brute and a psychopath. I expected to be held for ransom or used for menial labor repairing drive cores or even just as biotic target practice, but she instead informed me that I had been 'purchased' by an interested party who was aware of my research and my interests. Imagine my surprise. It was not some sick batarian slavemaster who awaited me, but an undiscovered and highly advanced race of isolationist aliens!

They call themselves 'humans.'

I have been among them for about half a decicycle now, give or take. I am not recording this on my old omni-tool but a modified one of their design and manufacture, based on technology harvested from our region of space. For the time being, that means no embedded pictures. Only text. I will attempt to describe the humans regardless.

They are superficially similar to asari, and in fact, they use that evolutionary coincidence to their benefit, posing as asari on expeditions into Citadel space. Imagine an asari, then, except her skin is a more earthy tone, such as brownish or a shade of pink-cream. No blues or purples are to be found. Rather than the crest atop an asari's head, this creature has 'hair' yet this is not the hair of a batarian! They are as we used to be! Their hair is thick and lustrous and… soft… I have been told, and can grow long indeed. The humans take it and style it in innumerable ways, just as we quarians used to, before being confined to these accursed suits.

Human faces are, again, very much like asari or even quarian faces, though they lack the brilliant phosphorescent glow of our eyes, at least under normal conditions. I would say they are a tall race, but their height seems to vary wildly like no other species I have seen. There are monstrous males and females of the human race that tower over me like a krogan, and then there are short ones, always female, whose eyes reach my chin. They have five fingers to a hand and their fingers are exceptionally nimble. I witnessed one playing a musical instrument and his fingers were tasking at an incredible speed, so much so that I could scarcely follow it with my eyes alone!

Since I have mentioned the male pronoun, I can confirm that unlike the asari they resemble, they have males. There is sexual dimorphism among their species just as among quarians. The call their branch on the evolutionary tree "mammal" and the similarity to both asari and quarian is strong: the females appear to have pronounced breasts, just as asari and quarians do, and a shape with more well defined hips, I would wager for the same reasons we do. Yet again, here, I see greater variation in the degree to which these features appear. I have the same suit-size as most quarians of my age and gender – a stock model E5 – but you could scarcely tailor such a suit for my female human counterparts. Some are tall, some are short, some are stout like a volus, some are willowy like a quarian dancer; many have the same bust size of a quarian, others of an asari. There is such a range of sizes even above and beyond that.

The males are thus rather like our males, but again, possessed of unusual variety within their ranks. I have not yet had the opportunity to observe one bereft of clothes, and my own experience with quarian males it mostly academic, but I have for the time being assumed that the coincidental similarities carry over. They are, on average, larger than our males. Especially the warriors. They look as if they could snap a quarian in two with their bare hands. Some have beards – hair growing around their jaws or under their nose – which I have never heard of quarian males having. Their dentition is omnivorous but their mannerisms seem innately predatory. Their physiology is fascinating, simply fascinating.

I only wish I could see inside them, open them up, to see what _really_ makes them tick!

Ah, but I am aware that saying things like that got me in trouble before, back when I was just a girl before her pilgrimage. I am working with several very knowledgeable medical doctors. In time, I hope that these humans will trust me enough to let me learn more about their biology and anatomy. I had also intended to record my initial thoughts about their history and society and culture, but I think that may have to wait until I have more data. They remain very secretive about their past and especially about their homeworld.

* * *

Daro'Xen's Personal Log

Entry 2:18:402

After a great deal of work, I have learned some interesting things today about the ubiquitous human "Gene Mods." It seems to be derived from the technology of another race that invaded their world with the intention of uplifting the humans in some particularly cruel way. It was from this "Elder Race" (for lack of a better term – though my mind immediately asks: prothean?) that the humans learned how to use a technology called MELD. I still do not know what MELD is, exactly, except that it must be some form of highly sophisticated micro-machine. What is very clear is that human "gene mods" are not simply alterations to their genetic code, but a sophisticated combination of genetic engineering and cybernetic implantation.

An example of the sort of common modification done using this alien technology is the "second heart." Based on study of another creature, a biomechanical life-form called a Cyberdisc, the humans have found a way to distribute vital backup systems throughout their body. One thinks of the krogan when one hears this, for the krogan are famous (or infamous) for their redundant nervous systems and other organs, evolved on the brutal world of Tuchanka, but I have found this comparison to actually be less than accurate. A krogan has multiple hearts, multiple livers and lungs… the humans appear to value distribution of the backup organs over sheer redundancy. It is clearly an _engineered_ solution rather than an _evolved_ one.

The human's Second Heart is not just a heart, but an invasive self-assembling and self-maintaining biomechanical system engineered to enhance and supplant many systems in the body. Almost an organism within an organism. While pumping blood as a heart does, it also monitors physiological status, regulates hormones and levels of nutritional substances, and filters for toxins and poisons. In an emergency, it can activate some form of tiny catalytic cell or reservoir within the body that distributes oxygen independent of normal mechanical breathing. It can even do the same for stored reserves of protein and sugar. The only thing not stored is a backup supply of water, though with filtration systems like I have seen, a human could drink an Elcor's wastewater and still survive. In case of shock or severe injury, it activates something called an 'adrenalin rush,' the details of which I am not yet privy to.

This is clearly a combat modification.

While I can imagine how useful it would be for all members of a race to have this sort of system, I am a quarian of the Fleet, and I know how useful it would be to our marines. Truly massive injury to a human with a Second Heart mod may incapacitate him or her, but it will not kill them outright, unless of course we are talking about trauma to the brain itself. A human can literally survive having a hole blown clear through their chest. The distributed backup heart will kick in, slowing blood loss and picking up the slack for critically damaged systems. The human then enters something like a self-induced coma. So long as his comrades reach him and stabilize him with additional medical attention, he can make a full recovery. Remarkable!

With this, and what little I have heard of the modifications done to human bones and muscles – this "adaptive bone marrow" – I wonder if it could be possible to modify these procedures for quarians? I have dropped a few suggestions about how much easier it would be for me to contribute to the research being done if I had a way of working outside my suit. I don't think I was as subtle with my hints as I could have been, but the humans seem receptive. If I am lucky, then maybe, just maybe, I may be the first quarian in generations to live outside the prison of her suit.

The humans have a saying: my fingers are crossed.

* * *

Brief bursts of light and radiation preceded the arrival of the _Glorious Harsa_ and her escorts: eleven cruisers and four frigates. The Indris system greeted them without a shot, at least to start. The order went out to reform and the smaller ships – separated by the innate, erratic drift of emerging from FTL – began to take positions in a formal battle line.

"Status of the enemy?" Admiral Kash'Raman sat on his command chair, alert but undisturbed. There was no way for the Camala traitors to match their might.

"Detecting multiple ships in Camala orbit," a subordinate replied. "Patching them into holo now."

A second later, and the pitiful traitors revealed themselves. They were sulking around in high orbit around Camala. The cowards. Did they think to hide behind the skirts of the planet itself? Did they think that the Hegemony would hesitate to fire, just because a few stray shots might hit the planet?

"They aren't even going to contest our arrival," Raman observed with a chuckle. "Have the fleet follow Course A. Hold formation within one light-second of the planet."

"Aye, aye!"

The order soon went out, and the armada began to slowly maneuver according to their given pre-planned approach routes. Every captain in the fleet was given commands from the top-down, in a manner that properly reflected batarian society. The captains needed only to carry out their orders: move, stop, fire. And – of course – they needed to keep their crew in place and up to speed.

That was a captain's true duty. To that effect, Hegemony captains were in charge of the finances of their ship, including recruitment of personnel, paying for ammunition and supplies, and other matters. Exactly how a captain spent his stipend from Central Command was up to him. Not only was it an age-old system, and time tested, but it also provided good training for captains to later take up … 'independent pursuits' outside the Hegemony.

"Sir, a coded transmission…!"

"From the Hatre?" Raman wondered. Was Grisgo Tak planning to bargain for his pitiful life?

"From the Idenna, sir."

The _Idenna_ was another modular cruiser, just like Grisgo's _Hatre_. It had defected along with the _Hatre_… making it just as guilty and deserving of punishment, in Raman's eyes, but not much was actually known about what happened on the _Idenna_. Perhaps it wished to defect once more? Raman smirked. Of course the base cowards and worms knew when to put aside their pride and switch sides. Having seen the might of the Hegemony, they must have been struggling just to hold in their loose bowels.

"Let us see it," the Admiral decided.

"Receiving acknowledgement ping," the Borus's conn tech announced. "Do we transmit, sir?"

The captain of the _Idenna_ sat in the chair that many could claim he had usurped. While violence raged across the cities of Camala, then-Captain Sorth'horo Varat had been among the first to train his guns on the people of the colony, intending to blast everything outside the Heaven and Mountain caste districts into blood and rubble. It was entirely possible he had forgotten that the majority of the ship's crew – of **any** given ship's crew – was **not** Heaven or Mountain caste. Now-Captain Hyorak had reminded both the Captain and XO of that fact right before putting a dozen rounds into each of their bodies.

The men of the Hegemony Fleet were many things, but _not_ murderers of their own kind.

"Are you certain of this?" Hyorak asked, inclining his head to the side towards the ship's trio of guests.

It was three asari, wearing unusual hardsuit armor. They were part of some new group called Eclipse, allied to backers of the revolution to which Hyorak was now a part. He didn't have an altogether high opinion of asari in general, and less for them on the battlefield, but these black-and-purple armored ones came highly recommended. Hyorak suspected they were Shadow Broker Ops. One thing asari could be counted on to be was committed to truly _long term_ contracts and according to galactic rumors, there had always been a Shadow Broker, at least for the last thousand years. He was probably a _she_, and _she_ was probably asari.

"Yes," the lead asari of the bunch answered, simply.

"We only need a moment," the second added.

Hyorak sniffed in amusement. "You _do_ realize that the moment this farce is over I plan to tell Admiral Raman to shove his eezo core up his own arse, don't you?" The three asari chuckled darkly, to Hyorak's personal approval. "Good. Then let's get you a look at that dreadnaught's bridge. I'm going to try and make the good Admiral blush orange."

"A moment is all I need," the third of the asari promised, her voice soft and almost sweet.


	4. Chapter 4

.

* * *

(4)

* * *

On final approach, the shuttlecraft came in fast and hot, well above safe approach speeds. The dreadnaught's hangar bay was second in size to only a star base, and aside from the six other shuttles parked in neat rows; cargo containers of a hundred types littered the area. The _Glorious Harsa _had wasted little time finishing preparation for its jump to Indris, and that included waiting for maintenance and support crews, made of low caste workers and technicians, to clear the hangar and finish transferring materials to the various internal cargo holds.

The approaching rebel shuttle, despite being cleared to land, seemed much more intent on _crashing_.

It crashed nose-first into the vacuum-way, forcing a dozen armed and armored ship marines to scramble out of the way. Sparks kicked up from where it spun across the serrated metal floor and a horrible screeching wail filled the hangar. The wiser marines not only dove for cover, but readied their weapons for what had to be a hostile reception. Not that they had come expecting anything but a fight. Just what had the rebels said to get the Admiral to agree to them sending over a 'peace delegation?'

Then the doors on the rear of the shuttle blasted wide, and asari commandos in black and purple began to jump out.

It was hard to say in the resulting confusion who fired first. In the end, it didn't matter. The strange asari moved swiftly: a small group took cover, laying down barrages of suppressive fire on the few marines who had hunkered down while others picked off the men who stood and fought with brutal efficiency. Grenades soon arced across the battlefield, rocking the hangar with explosions.

The asari were still heavily outnumbered, however, and that might have helped turn the tide… except that a group of them, having broken off from the ones on the ground, outright jumped three stories right onto the catwalk above the hangar's open area. From there, they speedily rained death down on the marines below. In the face of being so quickly battered and outmaneuvered, was it that much of a surprise when men began to panic?

The first to throw down his weapon and try to flee was a fresh conscript from Khar'shan, terrified in the face of his first real bout of combat. The hardened special forces of the Hegemony only made up a small percentage of the Fleet's total marine compliment. The average batarian marine was a poor boy from a low caste, drafted to fight for his Mountain caste superiors.

That one panicked marine quickly led to others. Some fired wildly and then tried to make themselves as small as possible. Others jumped up, exposing themselves to enemy fire in a mad attempt to run away. One started screaming and firing into thin air. The asari advanced mercilessly, gunning down everyone and everything in their path.

Ilena ducked behind a burning, overturned crate and tried to regain her bearings.

Whose idea had it been to crash the shuttle into the hangar, anyway? Oh, it certainly seemed to catch the local ship's marines by surprise, but they weren't the only one! And what if they needed to retreat? Now it was do or die, and neither were on the list of her favorite things.

Groaning, Ilena felt the back of her head bop against the warped metal. This was all because they had to keep their cover. Shepard had explained that usually XCOM used robots to do a lot of their work: those invisible seeker-hanar things and those cyberdiscs and something called a SHIV and a MEC. According to her, it was "unheard-of overkill" to deploy entire squads of psionic soldiers without robotic support.

Whatever that meant.

All Ilena knew for sure was that hiding behind a whole bunch of killer mechs sounded just about perfect. Catching her breath, she privately vowed to find some way to add mechs to Eclipse… if only so she had more metal to hide behind in future firefights. In fact, a good rule of combat in general was that there was **never** enough stuff to hide behind.

Emerging from behind her cover, hypersonic bullets leaving high pitched whines in their wake around her, she spotted a crouched batarian atop a landed shuttle. Arm flexing, she formed a rippling mass effect field around him and commanded it to **lift**. Still spraying fire, the batarian engineer cursed as he drifted upwards. Ilena shouldered her rifle, half concealed behind a crate of spilled food-packs, and put two tight bursts into his center of mass. His limp form continued to drift for a few seconds, even as Ilena scrambled to another spot.

Peeking out over the cover, she tried to find Shepard.

It would have been impossible in the confusion of battle without her eye implants. With them, as if on command, a single figure became highlighted. Shepard was with three others, mercilessly advancing on an entrenched group of batarian marines. Some sort of assisted-holographic targeting was focused on the enemy marines. A swirling maelstrom of purple energy ran down Annabel Shepard's left arm, took form in her left hand, and then shot out and into a batarian under heavy cover. It resembled a biotic push…

Except this 'psionic push' went _clear through_ the metal the marine was hiding behind. It didn't seem to damage it or blast it apart. It just went right through it to find its target.

The batarian's hands flew up to his head, clutching madly at his helmet for a heartbeat, before falling flat on his back. Still hiding herself, Ilena watched with macabre fascination as red batarian blood began to pool out from the inside of the fallen man's helmet. Driven by that same morbid curiosity, she quickly scurried over to another, similar, body. She had seen Shepard use that same psionic push against a nearby batarian right after they landed.

Ducking low and reaching a finger under the man's helmet, Ilena detached the front-plate.

"Ugh," she groaned, disgusted.

Psionic push wasn't it _at all._ Not unless you mean 'push your brains out of your eyes and nose.' Hastily snapping the visor back on, Ilena shook her head and tried to focus on what was left of the fight. Shepard and the two with her were pouring fire into a sniper's nest. One last shot thundered from the batarian's position, punching through the human's standard-military kinetic barriers… but pinging off the heavy armor beneath. Shepard staggered slightly, but continued to fire. Half-a-marine fell from his perch, cut in two by the sheer volume of enemy fire.

For a moment – just a moment – it seemed the worst of the fight was over.

"Shepard! Shepard!" Ilena cried out, pointing further down the hangar. "Gunship! Someone got into a gunship!"

The resulting barrage of precision-kill rockets did an even better job of alerting the humans to the danger. Flurry after flurry of death was still spewing out of the gunship's underslung munitions pods when a blaring siren sounded throughout the hangar. Ilena skittered on hands and knees across the grated floor and towards an upended shuttle, explosions tracking all around her. Like she had the entire fight, she focused mostly on keeping her own biotic barrier up. So far – thank the goddess – it hadn't been pierced.

The siren's whine suddenly cut off, and with it, the atmo and gravity.

Ilena's boots aligned to attach to the surface of the hangar, regardless, but the last of grav meant that dozens of bodies and tons of debris suddenly started floating through the former-air. The gunship was unaffected, of course. Ilena emerged from out of cover as it focused fire elsewhere, just long enough to hurl a quick **warp** across the hold. The turbulent mass effect field engulfed the front of the ship at around the same instant the pilot began to panic, firing wildly and spinning around like a dizzy salarian, destroying everything in sight.

A second later and a purple rift enveloped both gunship and pilot. Almost immediately, the two wings of the gunship sheared off, ripped out of their moorings. Unspent rockets exploded like a dozen red and orange blossoms, buffeting what was left of the writhing gunship. Blue warp and purple rift convulsed and battered the spinning gunship, ripping more and more of it away like a krogan tearing into a particularly delicious hunk of meat. Finally the whole thing exploded… or tried to, as a moment later it imploded instead, compacting into a jagged, bladed ball of metal, plastic, ceramic and bone. The Goddess alone knew if the pilot had been alive or dead by that point.

Dead, hopefully.

"Come on," a voice said over Ilena's comm.

Getting to her feet, and no longer being shot at, the asari commando had the freedom to really grasp the carnage these humans had made. Bodies were everywhere: dozens of them, floating eerily in the vacuum of the hangar. Ilena's eye implant identified each one, including a timestamp for when it had been confirmed KIA. For all the practice Ilena had been included in, it was still somewhat unsettling to really see and grasp what it all had led to. There had been no hesitation or mercy. The humans had killed everyone with alarming speed and alacrity.

It was also a problem…

As much as the humans wanted to emulate and appear to be asari, it was clear even to a dunce like her that they didn't _fight_ like asari. First of all, it was well known – especially among asari themselves – that most asari commandos fought individually or as pairs. The humans, probably because of this mild-meld-squadsight-link they had, fought like extensions of the same being. You would never see an asari, from a hundred paces away, suddenly turning to pick off an enemy that her sister was fighting, even outside normal visual range. There was no such insane _concentration of fire_ among asari, a half dozen guns literally training on one enemy after another, mowing him down like chaff from every direction.

Their teamwork, put simply, was suspiciously too good. No one Ilena knew fought like that.

Then there was the obvious one: throughout the whole fight, none of the humans had used biotics. Asari always used biotics. Not only were most asari born with eezo in their blood, so to speak, but every commando was basically required to have some biotic talent. As an asari herself, Ilena could also admit that using her biotics – it wasn't spamming them, precisely – was empowering. Most aliens didn't have the level of biotics that asari did. Whatever the reasons, everyone knew and feared asari biotics… yet here was a squad of them, not using any of the trademark biotic abilities. Ilena wasn't sure if that meant that she had to use her own more to compensate or if she should use them less to fit in and not draw more attention to the problem.

Lastly, again, was the _way_ the humans fought.

It was… like they were krogan or turians. They were capable of being extremely nimble, of incredible jumps and great bursts of speed, with lightning-like reflexes, but they didn't use them except to get into a better position to literally bathe an area in fire and purple nastiness. They took and absorbed enemy fire where asari wouldn't. They moved aggressively – too aggressively – understanding that their armor and bodies made them tougher and more durable than their opponents. Heavy armor like the sort the humans used was all but unknown among the asari. It wasn't so much that asari _couldn't _wear it – Ilena herself wore a human hardsuit identical to the others – it just wasn't a mentality that was actively cultivated.

The human's way of doing things was very different. If Eclipse was meant to become a front for their operatives, either they needed to adapt better to appearing asari, including adopting asari tactics, or Eclipse would have to adapt to be more like them…

"Clear!" a human called out, breeching the inside of the dreadnaught with a roaring det-charge.

Goddess, they were **not** a subtle people, these humans.

"Shepard!" Ilena said, running over to the real leader of their assault force. "You aren't going to de-pressurize the whole ship, are you?"

The human shrugged, seemingly unconcerned.

"There are inner airlocks ahead of us," she said, pushing past a trio of batarian marines who had foolishly hoped to take positions behind the outer airlock. The detonation that let the humans inside had torn them to pieces; literally torn them to pieces. The humans hardly seemed to care, shouldering their way through the gore just like they did the multitude of ship's marines they had cut through in the hangar.

"Not much of a problem, so far," another human remarked, omni-tool flashing as she began to slice into the inner airlock controls. "Compared to digging out entrenched mutons and chryssalids, this is a cakewalk."

"A cake-walk?" Ilena asked. It sounded _delicious!_

"It means things are going too easily," Shepard explained, leading the group forward. "And having drawn attention to that fact, I expect trouble around the next corner."

Ilena shook her head and had a good laugh at her human friend's expense. "Come on! Now you're just being paranoid!"

* * *

"Alright! Listen up!"

The batarian vanguard bore a coveted silver SIU badge. It was a warning to all that he had survived the brutal twenty-percent mortality rate training that forged the warriors of what was arguably the Hegemony's most elite unit. Elements of that same fanatical unit had been detached to guard both of the Fleet's prized operational dreadnaughts. At the first hint of insurrection or disloyalty, they were empowered to raise hell and unilaterally execute _anyone_ suspected of revolutionary sympathies, from the ship's cooks to the Admiral himself.

"We have intruders in the ship," he announced to the ranks below, assembled together in the mess hall. "Asari commandos, by all accounts; they've cut right through the ship's marines. Internal security is having little luck containing them, so they have engineers, too, to splice into our systems. You all know what this means. More glory for us!"

"Black Knife-" the batarian commando swept his hand towards one group of fighters. "-deploy belowdecks and guard the engine room. If they ignore it and push right to the bridge, I want to be able to call on you to hit them from behind. Gold Whip, you boys are with me. We'll cut them off before they reach the CIC. Lastly…"

The SIU operative sneered down at the rest of the fighters present.

"You _mercs_," he said with clear disdain. "You'll be taking point for Whip. I assume you don't have a problem with that?"

A chorus of hearty krogan roars was his response.

As if they would have it any other way. Not a one of them cared that they were just being used as a first wave to soak up fire. Not so long as they got to draw first blood. No so long as they got to dive face-first into the thick of the enemy advance.

In the back of the mess, leaning against the wall, one krogan remained silent. Why was it – Urdnot Wrex wondered – that the Shadow Broker's jobs always turned into such colossal clusterfucks? It _had_ to be because the pay was so good. The universe just _had_ to even the score, somehow. This time, it was with murderous asari commandos.

At least it wasn't baby thresher maws on a transport… again.

Once was enough.

Asari, on the other hand? He checked the ammo feed on his M-300. Asari weren't much of a problem.

* * *

The youngest krogan charged into the advancing enemy.

And, moments later, the youngest krogan died.

Two by two, their roars cut out and they began to do the unmistakable dance of the dead as tiny mass effect bullets stitched into and through their bodies. Wrex knew it would happen just as he knew there was nothing he could say to the young fools to stop it. Crouched low, half-in and half-out of some batarian's shared quarters, he could only watch as the slaughter reaped its deadly toll. So intense was the fire from these asari that one krogan's arm was ripped clean off. Another, when he fell backward, was completely unrecognizable as anything more than a mass of scarred and pulped meat.

Together with the older veterans, holding back, Wrex also got his first look at their opponents. They were asari alright. There was no other race in space with that particular outline and curvature. Unusual for asari, though, these ones wore some sort of new type of armor, not just on their bodies but over their faces as well. A pair of them advanced down the corridor under cover of their friends.

"Shit!" another krogan, another veteran, hissed as the moment he tried to take a few shots from behind cover a literal tsunami of fire zeroed in on his position. It was like staring down the barrel of a turian machinegun. Which quite a few krogan had done at one point or another. Still, it wasn't a pleasant experience.

"They're advancing!" a battlescarred krogan scrambled forward, edging uncomfortably close to Wrex's position. "We need to hit them again!"

"Go ahead and die if that's what you want," Wrex growled, not in the mood to see another wave of krogan die for no gain. "If they're advancing on us, that means we know where they're headed. We should-"

"I never knew Urdnot Wrex to be afraid of a few bullets," the grizzled krogan spat, leaning out to courageously take a few thundering shotgun blasts down the corridor. "Die, you pathetic little…!"

His head rocked back and he fell onto his side, a hole punched right into his left eye.

"Huh. They have a Widow." Wrex observed, grabbing hold of the dead krogan and pulling it closer. Sticky trails of krogan gray matter began to trickle out of the hole left by the armor piercing anti-material rifle. He unclipped a loop from around the krogan's waist.

"Ugg. Ugggh!"

Glancing up from his work, Wrex noticed something… odd… about the krogan directly across from him. The old vet had been keeping under cover, firing only sporadically. He wasn't hit. But there was something else wrong with him.

"You - you bastards!' he suddenly screamed, standing up and turning on the krogan next to him, "get away from me! Die! Die Die DIE DIE!"

_Berserk_.

He'd gone berserk.

Granted, that wasn't unusual for a krogan, but why now? The asari seemed to have paused to hunker down and pick them off outside the range of normal biotics. He wasn't the only one, either. A second later, even before the first berserking krogan had been wrestled to the ground cursing and screaming, another had suddenly snapped. Before anyone could stop him, he emptied four or five shotgun rounds into his neighbor.

"What a mess," Wrex grumbled, extending a mass effect field around the sniped krogan's body. Rolling out from behind cover, he placed both palms on the writhing corpse and used a biotic **throw**.

The dead krogan pinwheeled through the air and straight down the corridor.

Just before it got out of biotic range, Wrex hit it with a **warp** and ducked back under cover, bullets pinging off his shield and biotic barrier. Just a moment's exposure and they were virtually depleted. But it didn't matter.

His WARP devoured the thrown krogan, setting off the loop of grenades lashed to his belt – an otherwise impossible small sized target to hit with the biotic technique. Caught completely by surprise by the sudden explosion of fire and gibbed krogan, Wrex heard the first few curses and words of dismay from the attacking asari.

So: they weren't all mutes.

_'Your nightmare has only begun!'_ a woman's voice hissed.

Wrex ignored it. "Move, you pyjacks! Through the common area to your right! GO! Now!"

His vision blurred, momentarily growing hazy, but he forces his way past the momentary vertigo. Two other krogans at least managed to keep pace, rushing past the blazing inferno that now covered the rear living area and into a small lounge area for the batarian officers among the crew.

"AARGH!" one of the two other krogan roared, opening fire on an asari-

-only for his bullets to pass right through the scantily clad, dancing hologram.

"It isn't real?" he wondered, and whirled around. "No! No! I can hear them! They're behind us!"

Wrex grabbed the krogan by the shoulder and all but threw him behind a metal table. "Eyes front! They'll come through the wall. You! Get behind that door."

"R-right…" "Yes, Battlemaster!"

Wrex grunted, not particularly happy to be in charge of other krogan – even these riffraff. He worked solo, not as part of an outfit, and definitely not as a leader. Not for the first time, he quietly cursed the Shadow Broker for putting him in this situation. The fact of the matter was that if the other krogan here got their idiot selves killed then his odds would be worse than ever. It was just a matter of survival and the mission. That's what it was and that's all it was.

Just like Wrex had guessed, the asari blasted through the locked door leading towards the lower quarters. They breeched in an explosion of fire and stormed through without hesitation or subtlety. The three entrenched krogan managed to get in a few solid shotgun blasts. Wrex put two clean rounds into one of the asari – it should have been enough to knock the bitch off her feet and leave her howling for the mercy of their goddess, even with full barriers up – but she only staggered slightly and pushed forward to take up a position behind the holodisplay table.

Gritting his teeth, Wrex leaned out from behind his own cover and tried to finish her off with a **throw**. She shrugged it off and, hand glowing purple – purple? – returned the favor. The bizarre biotic pulse caught Wrex by the shoulder and nearly elicited a roar of pain. Over the centuries he had been hit by hundreds of biotic attacks. Nothing felt like this. Nothing _hurt_ like this. What in all the hells were these asari packing?

For that matter, how much did they mass? What did it take to put one of these bitches down?

The shields on the asari he had been dueling failed as he put another M-300 round into her chest. Rather than nimbly duck away, though, she snarled in some sort of unintelligible asari tongue and ducked down. A second later, and she actually ripped free the holotable and threw it clear across the room. All the while, the holographic asari dancer on it continued to gyrate and strike naughty poses.

"Oh, fu-" one of Wrex's krogan spat, a moment before the holo smashed into him, knocking him onto his back.

"Bb-bb-battle-mstr-" the second slurred as he jerkily began to turn around. He lifted his shotgun and took aim, not at the asari, but at the son of Urdnot.

His eyes were glowing purple.

There were times when a krogan had to know when to make a tactical retreat.

Backing away, kicking behind him to break open another door, Wrex fell back and ducked behind the threshold as another wave of bullets pinged and screeched around him. His shields hit a new low and he had to trigger his combat armor to get them to recover in time. Emergency energy reserves kicked in, regenerating his kinetic barriers in time for another quick retreat.

Another of the asari ducked around the corner, drawing a bead on him.

"RRRAAAGHH!" The eezo nodules in his right arm burning, Wrex lashed out with his strongest THROW. This, finally, knocked the asari off her feet and onto the ground. It was a small victory, but he'd hoped to send her flying clear across the room.

Swapping out his shotgun for his assault rifle, Urdnot Wrex could be forgiven for a moment's surprise when the krogan – his eyes still glowing purple – tromped through the doorway.

"It's me, friend," the krogan slurred.

"Sure it is," Wrex emerged from behind his cover, loading his M-15 Vindicator.

"It's me, friend," the krogan repeated, raising his shotgun and taking the first shot.

Wrex sniffed, disdainfully, as the range spread out the damage from the round. Bits and pieces glanced harmlessly off his barriers and shields. When he returned fire with his Vindicator, the assault rifle had no such problems with range, cutting with precision into and through the mad krogan's shields and armor. It probably wasn't a warrior's death, but at least it was a quick one.

Taking a step back, Wrex noticed the krogan wasn't falling down…

A second later, and it was kicked from behind and sent flying.

Wrex tore his eyes away from the movement and the initial distraction and towards the black and purple asari. She had been hiding behind the krogan, Wrex realized. Even his armor's sensors hadn't been prepared to distinguish between the two of them, only detecting the larger mass of krogan. With no time to switch back to his shotgun, Wrex tried to reorient and take aim at the asari with his assault rifle. There was little room here among the mass of batarian crew quarters.

Bullets pinged too high, then too much to the right, and then bounced off the asari's barriers as she closed. Wrex's own barriers likewise squealed as bullets ripped into them. As was inevitable, given his much larger profile and his initial surprise, the asari scored more hits and his barriers died with an electric sputter. A red hot poker tore into his chest as a bullet hit home, punching through between a pair of armor plates.

Then the asari actually plowed right into him with her shoulder, knocking him back a step with the impact.

Wrex's feet hit the ground and he quickly regained his balance, in time to see the asari coming at him with some new weapon. It was white and blue, like he remembered quarian weapons being in the day, and crackled with some sort of static charge. The asari lunged with it, and Wrex juked to the right, slamming his shoulder into a wall to avoid the blast of lightning that erupted from the close combat weapon.

It was a Citadel-damned lightning gun!

Despite her first shot being a miss, the asari was undeterred, and tried to take aim for another close-in shot. Thinking quickly, Wrex spun, knocking the weapon aside with his fist and then bringing that same fist around to backhand the woman. A vicious pulse of arcing lightning scarred a jagged line across a metal bulkhead and half the ceiling, but the second blow, rather than send the asari sprawling, merely knocked her back a step. Pulling away with her lightning gun, she tried to bring her assault rifle to bear.

Wrex grabbed at it, and it discharged a hot quartet of rounds into the hall, blowing holes in a nearby door. He yanked, hard, reeling the asari in and greeting her with a vicious head-butt – a krogan specialty. It had the effect of wrenching the gun out of her hands -

Except the moment it _did_ leave her hands, it exploded.

Releasing the slagged ruins of the rifle, he tried to return the favor. The asari seemed momentarily disoriented. Wrex's own rifle briefly acquired a bead on her… except her lightning gun came back in to the game. Actinic white light blinded the krogan and scrambled his assault rifle's innards. He could hear it blare a warning about eezo containment failure, and even blinded, had the good sense to toss it away before it burned up.

"Die already!" Wrex roared, swinging a brutal backhand at where he had expected the asari commando to be.

Instead, he felt a blow to the midsection and then something grabbing onto his arm, trying to wrench it behind his back and immobilize him. The image of the lightning gun entered his mind again and just what it could do. Mind racing, Wrex leaned abruptly forward. He felt a weight hit his back – heavy and asari-sized – as his opponent fell forward. He then kicked blindly back, feeling his three toed foot connect with something hard that may have been the woman's stomach or pelvis.

Turning around, he did what krogan do best, and charged, blindly.

The blur rapidly leaving his eyes, he felt his shoulder slam into the asari, but hell if she felt much like an asari – even an asari commando. It had to be the unusual armor. It was like plowing into a wall… or another krogan. He carried her into another bulkhead wall, where her back finally arrested their momentum with a crunch. It should've been enough to put her down for the count. Even Aleena wouldn't have been able to take punishment like this.

Except this asari growled something and Wrex felt her fingers dig into the top of his crest.

"Oh, this is gonna-"

His face went where his crest did, and that was right into the same bulkhead he had slammed the woman into.

Staggering away, he reached behind for his shotgun. On top of the clearing blindness there was now blood over half his snout. He saw a figure and tried to gun it down – it was the most basic of all krogan training and instincts – but the blur caught the shotgun by the side of the barrel and pushed it off to the left. The M-300's mighty roar filled the mangled crew quarters, missing once, and then a second time, as it pulverized not just a door but two of the bunks behind it. Some poor batarian's entire collection of digital magazines all but vaporized into a cloud of shredded plastic.

The hiss of building discharge filled Wrex with a momentary panic. The lightning gun!

He released the shotgun – it was useless anyway with the asari's hold on it – and lunged for the bit of white. He actually managed to grab hold of it and pull it free. Staggering back, through a door, and into another set of officer's quarters, Wrex caught his breath.

The asari was standing in front of him, holding his M-300.

He was standing in front of the asari, holding her lightning gun.

Without even needing to take his eyes off the dangerous commando, he squeezed what felt like a trigger. Without so much as a flinch, she did the exact same with his M-300. Both guns clicked and refused to fire.

"Biometric ID?" Wrex asked with a smirk.

"It seems so," the asari agreed, tossing the massive krogan-designed and krogan-built shotgun over her shoulder.

Wrex did the same with the lightning gun.

Instead, he reached one hand behind to his lower back, where he kept his trusty M-3 Predator. The other began to glow blue. To his delight, the asari commando began to do the exact same.

"Do you have a name, asari?" he asked, fingers finding his M-3, feeling it expand and activate.

Bur rather than answer, she just asked, "Do you, krogan?"

* * *

"This is relief transport Gatha-six-five-six! Enemy has heavy weapons in place! Hangar is **not** clear of hostiles! Repeat: hangar is **not clear**- AAAAAHHGH-!"

The second of a pair of marine transports attempting to dock with the _Glorious Harsa_ and provide reinforcements vanished in a purple and orange plume of fire. Burning up with it was a dozen armed men of the Sixth Mountain Battalion. Like so much debris, their bodies littered the space outside the hangar's mass-effect field, bouncing off the dreadnaught's hull or ending up sucked into and vaporized by the ship's kinetic barriers. A third shuttle on approach veered away in a panic.

"We need some gunships!" the pilot didn't even bother to encrypt his frantic call-to-all-ships. "It's hell-on-Khar'shan down here!"

* * *

A pair of heavy pistol shots ricocheted off a pair of equally strong kinetic barriers.

Urdnot Wrex half-roared and half-laughed as he traded shots with the black and purple asari commando, his arm lashing out to unleash a murderous **warp** into her upper torso. The woman had no way to dodge the biotic attack, but neither did he have a chance to dodge her strange purple fire. Both staggered, struggling to keep on their feet, but ironically, Wrex found the asari's purple biotics didn't hurt quite as much this time. Instead of feeling like a thresher maw was burrowing into his chest and eating his brain, this time it only felt like it was gnawing off one of his ribs. Not so bad!

Wrex's M-3 Predator barked as he fired, coughing out round after round of comparatively heavy slugs. Along the way, bodily crashing from one ruined set of quarters into another, his left hand brushed against the wall, ripping out a storage locker to throw at the asari. She batted it aside with contemptuous ease, and, also pouring fire in his direction, slipped her foot under a footlocker. With hardly any effort, she kicked it up and into the air, tumbling end over end. Not wanting to be outdone, Wrex also backhanded the makeshift projectile – nevermind that it weighted as much as a volus or two.

There was little remaining cover in the room, and within seconds, both combatants shields failed.

"Barrier," Wrex hissed to himself, his biotics flaring to shield him in a protective cocoon.

And the air around the asari also shimmered and shifted, but rather than a solid shield, this barrier seemed to curve bullets away. Two that should have hit her in the chest instead punched into the wall behind her to her left and right. One punched a hole in what passed for a pin-up of a batarian actress, plugging her poster right between her four eyes. It looked like keeping at range wasn't going to cut it.

Roaring a challenge, his krogan blood boiling, Wrex bull rushed forward. Showing no fear, the asari commando did likewise, trying to shoot through his barrier even as his own inaccurate, twisting shots bounced off her heavy armor. They met in the middle of a batarian commander's quarters, having thoroughly trashed every square inch of it.

Her hand grabbed his by the wrist, and he did the same with hers, stray shots punching holes in the ceiling above them as they jockeyed for balance and position. Just as Wrex secretly hoped it would, it came to honest blows. She struck first lashing out with a kick that felt like it was meant to cave in the engine of a truck or punt a varren over a building. Wrex felt his left leg buckle slightly, but it was to better absorb the blow. Angling his body, he checked the asari and, in the brief interval of space that formed between them, nailed her clean across the helmet with first his fist, and then with the butt of his M-3 Predator.

The former struck true enough, but the latter was expertly deflected as the asari brought her arms up to defend her upper torso and face. A small but muscular arm blocked the strike, and a comparatively tiny right fist struck lightning-fast, jabbing without mercy or hesitation to put out the krogan's right eye. Only a last second duck caused the vicious little fist to deflect off his armored head plate instead of turning his eyeball into so much pulped mush.

A damaged wall panel exploded as the pair fought, edging around one another and trading blows. Holographic recordings flickered on a sparking display: brief flashes of postcards home and batarian faces, mid-message, and then into the commercial audio and video recordings. It finally settled on the sparking and sputtering holo of asari pop superstar Blue Ice as she sang her latest hit single, Presidium Love.

"Come on!" Wrex growled, landing another blow against the asari's upraised arms. "Come on! Is that all you've got?!"

The asari responded with another set of lightning quick jabs, pecking away at him to try and create an opening for a more powerful but also more choreographed blow. Juking out of the way rather than taking the hit to the jaw, Wrex actually found himself guarding his face against the onslaught of strikes. The asari was mind bogglingly fast to go with freakishly strong, and for a few moments it was all he could do to protect his eyes and face. A half-dozen lighter blows – still strong enough to probably kill a turian or two – pecked at his torso, trying to bring down his arms.

Vicious. This asari was _vicious_. He loved it.

Still, this wasn't a fighting style Wrex could remember seeing before. Not among asari commandos – and he had seen a lot of asari commandos over the centuries – and not among any other race, either. It only vaguely reminded him of some krogan fighting styles, but without the reliance on mangling the other guy with your crest. It wasn't really krogan and it sure as hell wasn't asari. Then again, Wrex couldn't remember the last time he had run into an asari this absurdly strong. As if the purple biotics weren't enough of a give-away. This woman was some sort of freak of nature.

Counterattacking and leaning in just a little too far, Wrex cursed as the asari maneuvered around his blow, grabbed hold of his wrist and elbow, and turned. He could feel the pressure building in his joint even before she got the chance to break his arm at the elbow. Krogan bones were tough, and so were their joints, but after trading blows with this beast of an asari, Wrex held no illusions about what she could do with sufficient leverage. His elbow screaming in pain, he ducked and spun, wrenching his way out of her hold.

With his good arm, he struck, trying to grab her by the throat.

His fingers just barely found her armored windpipe before she seized him by the wrist, twisted and squeezed. Wrex growled, pushing her back and trying to crush the bones of her throat. He could feel just a little give, but then her right arm hammered down on the junction of his elbow, causing his grip to slacken and his arm bow. Sensing a losing position a few seconds away, facing an opponent both nimble and exceptionally strong, Wrex lowered his head and tried to bludgeon her with his armored crest.

The first blow definitely hit, and hit hard, because she let go. The second fared less well, as she instinctively brought her arms up to defend herself again. Rolling out of the way as he leaned back for a third head-crash, Wrex plowed crest-first into the wall with a thud. The walls in most of the crew quarters were hollow and thin, to save space and to leave room for electronics. This already damaged section finally caved in under the impact with a squeal of strained steel and aluminum.

Only a moment out of his sight, she went right for his hamstrings.

Wrex grunted as he went down to one knee, bringing his hands up just in time to block a knee to his face. Reaching out to the wall, he ripped loose a sheet of metal and swung it like a club, catching the asari first across an upraised arm and then – coming back in the other direction – across the stomach. She spun around and he hammered her again, and then again. She finally grunted in pain: a feminine sound immediately hardened by a guttural snarl.

Good to know, freak of nature that she was, that this asari could still feel pain.

Throwing aside the twisted and near-broken metal square, Wrex forced himself up and into the asari's exposed chest. She kept her damned arms up protecting her face, but Wrex didn't mind. It was time to return the favor for earlier.

Holding her upper body back with his still strained and hurting arm, he pounded his fist into her midsection like a jackhammer. He could feel where he was hitting armor, and he could feel that there was something fleshy and living underneath it, but it just wasn't giving. It just wasn't breaking. He hit the same spot, over and over: what should've been an asari's kidneys. She should've been screaming in agony. He barely got a few pained grunts from her.

Instead, back to the wall, she tried to gouge out his eyes. Cursing – did she _always_ have to go for the eyes – he had to call off his attack and grab hold of her slim wrists. She pushed off the wall, too, and the pair went sprawling on the floor. In the confusion, sneaking in a quick head-butt for good measure, Wrex lost his hold on her. Amazingly, one of her hands found its way to his own thick neck, less to try and strangle him and more to hold him down.

The other whipped out a forward-curved knife.

It looked like something a particularly sadistic krogan would've dreamed up, not so much to use, but just to threaten another krogan's quads with. There was a serration or notch along the bottom, near the small hilt, and the blade's body was shaped sort of like a leaf. It looked like it was meant for hacking, but the wickedly sharp tip was probably more than capable of working its way into a seam in a krogan's armor. Straddling him, she flipped the knife around and tried to plunge it into his chest.

Rolling sharply to his left, he just barely avoided being impaled. A quick turn to his right did the same, except this time she nicked his armor, catching and cutting loose a strip of red-plaz-plate. The furious asari, dismissing the idea of stabbing him for a moment, instead drew back her arm for a slash: one he couldn't possibly avoid and one that would probably spill his guts across half the room.

"HRRRAGH!" Wrex's fist snapped out, hitting the asari in the chest…

And also unleashing a point-blank biotic **push**.

The explosion of gyrating, expanding, blue mass effect fields knocked the pair apart. It also sent the asari flying like none of his other blows had managed to. She bounced off the ceiling and then into a pair of batarian bunks, tearing them in half with her impact. Groaning as he struggled to get back up onto his feet, Wrex could see the asari's chest sparking and sizzling. For just a moment, he entertained the idea that maybe she was some sort of combat robot like the geth. It would explain some things… except… _no_. She was breathing. And the damage done to her armor was just to the outer layer.

Having no other weapon handy, Wrex took an unsteady step towards the stunned, fallen asari. His right hand wreathed in biotic-blue, he hammered her with a **warp** and then another **throw**, his redundant nervous system still struggling to recover from the output he had dumped into his last strike. She shuddered and convulsed under the barrage, but stubbornly remained intact. Wrex could feel his instincts screaming for him to run up to her – to stomp her into the ground – to finish the fight up close!

Except… she still had that knife in her hand.

"Quit playing dead," he growled, promptly telling his krogan instincts to burn up on re-entry. It was thinking like that, that got even the best battlemasters killed. Instead, he strained his body to summon up another **push**.

"You hit hard," the asari stated, her hand whipping forward.

Purple energy raced across the room and into Wrex's arm, shearing biotic nodules.

"AAAGGH!" He clutched his arm: it felt like his nerves had been set on fire!

"That's a lot more effective if I 'interrupt' you while you're still powering up," the asari stated, struggling to get back up amid the wreckage around her. "I'll have to remember that-"

She was interrupted by several hundred pounds of pissed off krogan plowing into her.

"Interrupt this!" His fist buried into her midsection, eliciting another pained gasp, and then with the same fist, he struck upwards to catch the asari monster across her jaw. Finally, he could've sworn he heard something give. Still pinning her upright against the damaged hall, using his still-pained left hand to grab hold of her knife, he angled his neck and leaned in to try and see the damage caused.

It was almost impossible to see anything through the asari's helmet… except maybe through the tinted material covering her eyes. Wrex had to crane his neck, but he brought her eye to eye. He could just barely see inside her helmet.

The eyes looked asari… but… there was something off about them: about their color and their shape.

And what were those strands of wire?

"What the _hell_ are you?" Wrex asked, sucking in a breath.

"What the hell are _you_?" the asari mimicked.

Wrex's gasp of surprise instantly turned to a roar of pain as he felt a hand seize him by the quads. With a guttural snarl the asari pushed him back, one hand between his legs and the other grabbing him by his armored hump. She took a thunderous step towards him, pushing him back, and to his astonishment, Urdnot Wrex felt his feet leave the floor.

This asari – this asari was _actually_ – she was actually _picking him up_.

"W-w-what the hell!" Wrex cried, wincing again as the woman literally had him by the balls. Up he went, off his feet, and then into the air. Hundreds of years of fighting, and in all that time, Wrex couldn't remember the last time an opponent had literally picked him up. Not since he was little, learning at the foot of his father. The asari screamed in effort and finally lifted him right over her head, spun him around hundred and eighty degrees, and slammed him down onto the floor with a thunderous crash.

"If you aren't a captive… then you're a _corpse_," she stated, breathing heavily as she towered over the shocked battlemaster. She lifted a suddenly very menacing looking boot to stomp his face in.

"I'll take the third option!" Wrex roared, lashing out with his knife he had taken from her.

It just barely caught her leg, but still cut a clean line across her outer armor. Whatever else, this woman had good taste in bladed weapons. This was a quality knife!

But she didn't back off entirely.

Purple light glowed from within her helmet, streaming out of her eyes. Wrex rolled onto his side and braced himself for another attack… only to notice a circumference of purple enveloping the room. It expanded, solidified, and then filled with swirling, hateful energy. Everything that roiling purple light touched, it sheared apart. Metal walls and floor supports twisted and groaned in protest, melting and melding in impossible ways. Military-grade plastics ran in sloppy rivulets. Electronic systems shorted out and caught fire. Wrex, too, could feel it begin to twist apart his body, but despite it all, there was a warmth – a powerful warmth shrouding himself – protecting him from the worst of the – the _rift_.

"Lieutenant!" a female voice called out. "Hey!" another followed a second later. An asari's voice.

"Shit," Wrex cursed under his breath, aiming for and blasting through one of the rift-weakened walls. One of those mutant asari was bad enough. Two? Three? Only an idiot like Wrev would stay and fight against those sorts of odds. Besides, his contract with the batarians was a distant second after his contract with the Shadow Broker. It was time to make a tactical withdrawal.

* * *

"Jesus Christ, Lieutenant!" Sergeant Tanner came up short at the sight of Lt. Shepard, her armor blood stained, blasted and smoking, her vital signs – according to the squad datalink – fluctuating wildly. "What the hell happened? You look like you just went five rounds with a Berserker!"

"According to this, two of your ribs are kinda broken," Ilena added with a wince as she walked past the humans. "Doesn't that hurt? I mean, I've never broken a bone, but I did skin my knee once and-"

Shepard growled, grabbing the true-blooded asari by the back of her armor to pull her out of range of the still stormy psionic rift. God only knows what even a half-second in a rift would do to the girl. Probably pop her like a balloon. Of course, this krogan had not just survived it; he had used it to escape.

You had to respect that sort of willpower.

Even for a ranked-psion, it was foolish to just walk through a rift. Not without a mind shield at least.

"Wait for the rift to die down," Shepard commanded, even as Sergeant Tanner took a knee to quickly inject her with a med-kit. "Then run that krogan down. Standing orders are to capture him if possible. If not: kill him. _No witnesses_. Blue Team: continue towards the bridge. That includes you, too, Ilena. We're running behind schedule."

"But-" the asari maiden tried to protest. "You're hurt. Shouldn't you…"

"This isn't hurt," Shepard admonished her with a grim smile. "This is me feeling _good_."

Gradually, the swirling psionic maelstrom died down and Shepard and Sergeant Tanner rushed through it in pursuit of the krogan battlemaster. Ilena was left behind to hook up with Blue Team.

"Note to self," Ilena whispered, "humans are weird."

_'Broadcasting message,'_ her armor's VI-HUD chirped.

"What! No! Stupid thing! Note to self! To _self!_"

* * *

Torbak Brull still remembered losing two friends to the final stages of the SIU's infamous initiation rites. The instructors, former SIU operatives themselves, had paraded the broken bodies out before the program's other hopefuls. 'Weak' they had called them. 'Unworthy' they had said. A smarter batarian would have known his limits and dropped out of the program before the training became lethal, and a better batarian would have survived, regardless of the hardships. The instructors had strung the bodies up by their ankles for a day, to rot in the sun and exposure, before finally wrapping them in a batarian flag and sending them home for proper burial.

Torbak Brull had expected that, after that _hell_, he could survive anything the universe threw at him.

He was wrong.

"Ugggh. Uggg. Uggh." His leg dragged painfully behind him as he forced himself up, using a nearby wall for leverage. Looking down, he could see a jagged flange of metal sticking out of his leg. Gingerly touching it, he could tell he'd gotten lucky – it hadn't severed an artery or gone through bone. Just muscle. He wasn't going to die. Not yet.

Not just yet.

"Keep fighting!" he roared, shambling like a walking corpse over another dead comrade. The man had died clutching his helmet, and smoke curled out from gaps in his armor. "Don't give them a trech! Not even one trech! For Khar'shan!"

His boot almost slipped on a slick pool of crimson but he kept upright.

Around him, the last few pockets of his glorious battle-squad, Gold Whip, were fighting on. Though whether they heard or heeded his words or not, he couldn't tell. The organized offense of just a few minutes ago had been ripped apart along with its expensive krogan vanguard. The batarian core of the regiment had shifted to a defense in depth, contesting the enemy advance across the ship at every turn. Reinforcements had been slowly trickling in through airlocks from other ships, but so far no one had been able to retake the hangar or attack the enemy from behind. All they got from Black Knife was static. Eventually, any and all organized defensive measures had dissolved into small pockets of individual or paired resistance.

And the monsters just kept coming.

"RAAAGGH!" a feral roar split the air as one of the few remaining biotic vanguards charged, shotgun roaring, biotics flaring as he briefly vanished into the smoke and fire.

His war-cry turned into a high-pitched scream seconds later.

"We need more fire support!" someone cried. "Sorvol! Sorvol! Get off your ass and help us! We need suppressive fire! Sorvol!"

Sorvol didn't answer – mostly because Sorvol's head looked like a piece of overripe fruit that had been stuffed with a firecracker. His brains and what looked like part of his lower jaw were splattered all over his heavy cannon and tripod. The gun itself did look intact, thank the gods, just half-buried beneath the corpse of its owner. Two other batarian marines were also dead near the heavy gunner, one with a still-smoking heavy pistol pointed down at poor, dead Sorvol. More friendly fire. More _madness_.

Dark shapes ducked and zipped forward from cover to cover, advancing relentlessly towards the bridge. How many men he had lost holding them back, Torbak couldn't begin to guess. There were the almost two hundred men of Gold Whip, plus at least four squads shuttled over from other ships and forced through nearby airlocks and into the crossfire. As far as he could see, the cramped halls and corridors were littered with dead, and not a one of them had tits; not a one of them looked _asari_. The proud warriors of Khar'shan, who should be mopping up and enslaving the rebel scum of Camala, were bleeding out and dying in the halls of their own flagship! The thought alone was like chains around his soul, weighing him down.

"Surrender already, you morons!" a female's voice cried out. "You can't win!"

Stupid woman.

Didn't she see it? Didn't she realize it? The cowards and traitors had already been thinned, leaving only the pure behind. She had to be joking. _Surrender_.

"Never," Torbak whispered, forcing his way towards the heavy mass-effect automatic weapon. "Fight on!" he said, and it was barely a hoarse groan. Raising his voice and sucking in a breath, he yelled to his remaining men: "Fight ON… my brothers!"

The response from the asari was another tidal wave of bullets, answering the renewed barrages of cracking rifle fire from entrenched batarian marines. An explosion filled the hall further down, and they appeared, breaking out from behind some sort of shimmering area-denial mass-effect barrier. It was a biotic technique Torbak had never seen before: a barrier like a ship's shield, deflecting enemy fire.

From a new angle, they flanked and picked apart a small cluster of marines under heavy cover. One of the dark asari commandos directly assaulted the batarian position, weaving deftly around a pair of shotgun blasts and knocking over a burly batarian marine half-again her size, as easily as a krogan would body-check a vorcha or a salarian. She then emptied two rounds into him with an enormous terminus shotgun while he lay sprawled out on the floor, not even flinching as blood splattered over her legs and chest. When she turned to glare back down the hall, it was like a demon out of the old stories. A hellish purple and red haze trickled out of the eyes of her helmet, yet more of the ethereal vapor expanding out from where her mouth should have been, as if she was exhaling her very soul. It was no wonder so many had panicked in terror once the battle was joined.

But Torbak Brull did not panic.

Torbak Brull did not quail in fear.

Torbak Brull kicked the dead Sorvol off his heavy weapon and quickly snatched up the big gun, his omni-tool automatically defaulting to 'modified ammo: incendiary.' Stumbling back, bracing himself against a wall, the batarian special operative squeezed the trigger. Without a tripod there was no real way to aim the massive rifle, so he simply sprayed fire down the hall, hosing down anything and everything in his path. Exploding bullets tore into the floor, ceiling, walls, everything, without discrimination. The demonic asari scattered for cover. It was impossible to tell if any of them were hit, but Torbak could see strange curls in the air where his bullets warped and went off course.

"Die, you monsters!" he howled, body spasming as the automatic weapon kicked in his arms. "Die!"

Then blue fire engulfed him, knocking him back and sending the barrel of his heavy cannon upwards to pepper the ceiling. Lighting flickered and died as he perforated lords-knew what vital systems overhead. Emergency backups kicked in a second later, plunging the entire area into a sickly omni-tool orange. Trying to recover control of the gun, Torbak felt his weight shift and his body **lift** off the floor-

Of course they had normal biotics, too, damn them. He'd almost forgotten.

Flexing his own eezo muscles, the batarian vanguard forcibly dispelled the mass effect field holding him up. He landed hard on his feet, his left leg protesting with a spike of red hot pain. Still holding onto the automatic weapon with one hand, he quickly identified the source of the attack: the only one of the damned asari demons glowing the trademark blue of active biotics. She was charging through the fire downrange, her fist clenched around a helix of blue, building up for another biotic **throw**.

Torbak gripped his automatic weapon with both hands and brought up his good leg, feeding nerve impulses into the eezo nodules in his calf and thigh. Stomping his foot, a **shockwave** of unstable mass effect fields rippled out along the floor, exploding like little mines. He'd expected the asari commando to nimbly jump up over the shockwave, giving him a marginally better target to pick off with his cannon.

"Woah-woah-woah!" the asari yelped, in a surprisingly un-demonic fashion, arms spinning wildly. She skipped to a stop _right_ where the shockwave petered off, but far worse than that, her flailing arms released their biotic charge, the blast arcing and looking less like a ball of blue and more like a scythe.

It caught him by his legs and knocked him clear off his feet.

Torbak hit his side with a grunt, and a second later someone yanked away his heavy cannon. Scrambling backwards, he pumped back a fist for another biotic push, only to have a small hand grab his wrist. The pain disrupted his concentration, nerves flaring in agony, and his eezo discharged their fields into the air with a fizzle. It was one of the black and purple asari. She held him by his wrist like a child… and then lifted him off the ground like a gutted varren at the butcher's market.

"That was a little reckless, wasn't it?" the masked asari asked, and the other one – the only one without a full-enclosure helmet – approached with what looked like a sheepish grin.

"I can't let you guys do _all_ the work!" she replied, and crossed her arms over her chest with a pout. "Things were getting pretty messy back there; both of your shields dropped so I thought I'd step in and save the day! Plus, this is the guy we want, right?"

"It is," the one holding Torbak up by his wrist answered.

"And who captured him?" the unmasked commando asked, pointing to herself. "This hot blue ass, that's who!"

"So you flailing around was…?"

"I call it my **biotic slice** technique, and for the record, it was totally done on purpose."

A sharp gunshot to the left preceded another of the asari commandos appearing. "Not a single surrender," she stated with a sniff. "They were brave; I'll give them that."

It was over. It was actually over. They were just mopping up now.

"_Asari_," Torbak hissed. "Of all the races in space, it had to be _asari_."

"Hey!" the unmasked one objected. "What's wrong with asari, huh?"

Torbak smiled, putting on display his impressive nest of needle-like teeth. "Nothing much, girl. I didn't mean it like that. Your kind have their uses… uses I'm intimately familiar with. Back on the Brull family estate on Khar'shan, we have an asari just like you. Same color and everything. My grandfather captured her on a cargo hauler. Way he tells it, it was easier breaking her in than anyone expected, and how nice is it that you look the same even after a hundred years?"

The asari's smile gradually faded. "Hey now-"

"She used to change my diapers," Torbak went on, heedless of the interruption. "So the first time I took her for my pleasure, I did it in my old nursery. I was worried she wouldn't feel anything at all, not after so many years serving our family, but she _still_ wept when I raped her… and she still _screamed_ when I said I'd do the same to her daughter. That's what your kind are good for, _asari_. I wonder if you'll end up like her some day? I only wish I could be there to find out."

Ilena glared at the batarian, and then turned to her companion. "_Wow_. And here my sister says there are no more nice guys in the galaxy."

"A real charmer," the masked asari agreed.

"Are you trying to get us to kill you with that little story, or was that true?" the light blue asari asked him, fixing him with her eyes.

Torbak only smiled wider.

"In that case-" Ilena's clenched fist lightly bopped the batarian commando between the eyes. "-I want you to imagine what she'll do when the rebels reach your family estate and give her and _every other one of your slaves _a gun, a pack of matches, and a bottle of lighter fluid. I think they'll have a party. What do you think?"

Unbidden, the image of docile, obedient, compliant Sayalra… being given a handgun again, after however many years, a vengeful grin spreading on her face… filled the pit of his stomach with dread. Grandfather had broken her. Father had broken her. He, Torbak, had _broken_ her. She was a slave. She was just a slave. An inferior alien, on top of that. She never – she wouldn't _dare_ to-

"It won't happen," he hissed at the asari witch. "The Hegemony will crush you. It will crush you _all_."

"You know, I wonder about that," Ilena mused, turned to one of the other women, and nodded.

A cloud of purple filled Torbak's vision, and his body went limp.

"The… Hegemony… will crush you." His lips moved, but the voice was off – like two voices speaking in stereo – as the batarian's head limply rolled around over his shoulders. "Crush you," he repeated. The one voice became slightly less feminine and more masculine. "The Hegemony will crush you. …Good. I think this will do."

"Voiceprint match is ninety-eight percent," the asari holding him up released his wrist, but instead of collapsing onto the floor, the former commando stood and straightened up. A faint outline of purple suffused each of his four beady eyes.

"What's it like in there, anyway?" Ilena asked, nudging the commando to her right. "Inside his head?"

The human psion summed it up in one word: "Disgusting."

* * *

The bridge of the _Glorious Harsa _was on lockdown.

News from belowdecks was sporadic, but none of it positive. Further heightening the anxiety of the bridge crew were the SIU Operatives stationed on the bridge to ensure 'harmony' and loyalty to the Hegemony and more specifically the Security Directorate. The hardened men paced around the bridge like hungry varren, eager for any news of the outside. Like all SIU Operatives, they had access to the finest weapons produced by the Batarian State Arms company, and they didn't need to brandish their weapons at the bridge crew to threaten them. Everyone already knew what would happen if the "s" word started being spoken aloud.

"Admiral," the leader of the small group of die-hards spoke up. "The time is approaching… we must consider self-destruct protocols…"

"No." Only Admiral Kash'Raman dared to argue with the men. He sat still on his command chair, as impassive as stone, his four eyes closed in thought and his hands cupped in his lap. "No! The _Harsa_ is the finest of our dreadnaughts and we have precious few. I will _not_ see it destroyed in haste! Better to choke the belowdecks with blood than to damage this vessel."

His fanaticism seemed to touch a cord with the SIU man, yet again.

"Yes. Yes, you're right, of course," the man murmured, returning to his anxious pacing. "More men will come. We have a whole fleet's worth…"

A grainy message cut through the tension in the air.

"This is-" static "-repeat, this is Commander Brull! We have repulsed the enemy with heavy losses." More static "I need to get my wounded out of the way before the next assault. Medical supplies are exhausted! I am opening the shutter door."

"Commander!" the operative on bridge oversight spoke into his helmet comm. "I thought we were supposed to keep the bridge sealed?"

The response came a second later, crackling slightly with interference. "Negative. Once the wounded are though, reseal the door behind us."

"Y-yes, sir!" the SIU man replied, and motioned to his fellows. "Get to the door. Pull the wounded through and re-seal it, ASAP!"

Combat boots thudded as the men lowered their rifles and hustled over to the huge blast doors that protected the dreadnaught's bridge and CIC. The entire bridge crew watched with tension and fear as the double-doors unsealed and slowly began to draw apart. In a sprawling holographic display behind them, the rest of the fleet remained huddled close to the _Glorious Harsa_, the battle for the planet momentarily forgotten. It was almost as if they, too, were holding their breath.

Commander Brull appeared with two heavily wounded batarians under each arm. His leg was bleeding badly, too, but the SIU veteran hardly seemed to pay it any mind. Two other men rushed forward to take the wounded and relieve their leader of the burden.

"Are these the only two?" one of the men asked, craning his neck to look past the Commander and the blast doors.

The other reached under the wounded man's chin to lift his head and eyes. "This… this guy is-"

"Dead?" Brull asked, drawing out his service pistol. It barked, once, twice, putting a round into the skull of two unburdened but unprepared SIU Operatives nearby. Their heads jerked back sharply and they fell without a word of protest.

"NO!" their former leader cried, trying to raise his assault rifle.

Roaring shots followed from shimmering shapes next to Commander Brull. Bridge crew ducked under their workstations, huddling and cowering and crying in fear. Other SIU men were cut down, either by their treacherous commander or by the two cloaked asari that started to slowly materialize. Faster than a drell could take a piss, it was over.

"Clear," one of the asari said, advancing with her assault rifle braced to her shoulder.

"Clear," the second agreed, moving slowly and sweeping over both the dead operatives and the terrified crew. "Roger that. All clear, ma'am."

Ilena strode into the bridge, patting Brull on the shoulder affectionately as she entered.

"Good work, Torby," she said, loud enough to be heard and recorded by the bridge cameras. "I think somebody's earned a biscuit."

The mind-controlled batarian grumbled, reflecting the human controlling him.

"Now, Admiral!" Ilena quickly moved on, waving her handgun round like a cheerleader with a particularly deadly baton. "I think you should do what's best for your ship and your men… and stop lining them up for us to kill. What do you think? I mean, we **could** just keep _killing_ and _killing_ and _killing_ them-" she pointed to herself and then to the other two asari commandos. "-not that we're officially keeping score, but some of us are keeping score and I'm in a solid second place right now, so I wouldn't mind if the bodies stopped coming…"

Channeling a little bit of the psycho-bitch she remembered so well from working under Sederis, Ilena pointed the M3 Predator at a few random bridge crew, gleefully using the unspoken threat of random execution to terrify them. She even added a little saunter to her meandering around the bridge on the slow route over to where the admiral sat on his command chair.

"There's, what, twenty of you guys here? Actually, I guess I could shoot the whole lot of you and get the number one spot!" she continued to rant, until she finally ended up in front of Admiral Kash'Raman. "But that would be boring, too," she admitted, pointing the handgun at the man. "So how about you do me a personal favor and surrender? Doesn't that sound nice?"

Slowly opening his eyes, the stoic batarian admiral's mouth curled just slightly into a small smirk.

His eyes, just as Ilena expected, were roiled in purple beneath the surface.

"On behalf of my men, and for the sake of them and this ship," he replied, slowly. "I surrender."

"That's a good start!" Ilena answered with a cheeky grin. She turned towards the massed remains of the batarian fleet. "Now… how about we let everyone else know about your change of heart, too?"

"S-sir!" the ship's conn spoke up, wincing as one of the terrifying asari glanced over him, but still delivering his message. "Our scouts report that the rebel cruisers are moving in, flanked by their frigates! Sensors confirm! They're using the planet as cover, but they are definitely accelerating towards the fleet."

"Ready all guns," the Admiral ordered, Ilena jauntily circling his command chair before settling in behind him, leaning over the back of the chair with her arms resting on his shoulders.

"Sir!" one of the four gunnery officers objected. "Sir, are you sure?"

"I gave the order," Raman snapped. "Ready all mass accelerators."

"T-targets?" the Chief Gunner Officer dreaded the answer, but asked anyway.

"The _Zoome_, _Tota_ and _Florak_. Put our main gun on the _Bokal_." Kash'Raman – or, rather, the psionic controlling him – already had a list of targets most receptive to go along with the surrender. "Broadcast to all ships. This is Admiral Kash'Raman. The _Glorious Harsa_ has surrendered to the enemy; all attached fleet assets are advised to do the same or to attempt to retreat back through the relay."

Ilena watched it all unfold with a sort of morbid fascination.

It was surprising, really… just _how many_ ships opted to surrender rather than risk facing down the guns of the _Harsa_ or the approaching rebels. More choose to fight in vain than they did to return to Khar'shan in disgrace, where the Directorate would probably be harsher on them than the mass accelerators of the rebel frigates and cruisers. One thing was for sure: there were going to be a lot of brown pants in Khar'shan tomorrow morning.

Still, even as the battle unfolded before her, Ilena found her thoughts drifting back to Brull's disgusting taunts from earlier. Of course, it was no surprise that the batarians _had_ to have a fair number of asari slaves in their territory. Asari lived long lives; every asari enslaved a hundred or two hundred or even eight-fucking-hundred years ago would _still_ be alive today. It wasn't really something she had thought about before. Ilena closed her eyes briefly and remembered how Jona Sederis – an asari herself – had felt little compunction selling her own kind to the batarians whenever they were captured in a raid. She'd been there too; a maiden on her second or third serious run with a real mercenary outfit on the Terminus, nervous and still the butt of everyone's jokes and hazing. Ilena remembered just standing there, acting tough and joking with the others, saying nothing, even as the miserable prisoners shuffled by into the slaver's transport.

She hadn't so much as given it a second thought then, but now… now…?

Now it kind of pissed her off.

Activating her omni-tool, Ilena shut off the bridge camera feed. The fight here was over. For XCOM, it was mission accomplished; for Eclipse, it was just the beginning.

* * *

"We're talking about a _two thousand pound lizard_! How, exactly, did you _lose_ him?"

The veteran medic stiffened at the frank criticism of her commanding officer. "I have no excuse, lieutenant."

Shepard growled in her throat but didn't fail to take note of the multitude of dead batarians that littered the hallways surrounding the ship's engineering block. They were strewn about like broken toys, but it was easy to see which ones the medic had been recently responsible for. Those were clean, painless kills: even in close quarters, they were precise blows to the head, leading to instant death. Nothing fancy. The woman only had the basic hand-to-hand training that was required of all XCOM field agents, but she was effective enough. As expected. Bradford and the Commanders had given her a group of the best.

But how could this krogan have slipped out of their fingers… _again?_

"There… and there." Shepard said, picking out two corpses near the back. One had been folded in half-

-the krogan body checked the smaller batarian, the force of the blow enough to stun, but it was the metal pipe behind the man that broke the camel's back.

The other, propped up on his side, sported a huge, ragged wound in his chest-

-two precise shots thundered in the cramped confines of the engineering block, the krogan whirling on the other marine and firing. His shotgun had been lost in the melee earlier, his assault rifle and even handgun, too. This new shotgun was smaller. Batarian. But it did the job.

Shepard's eyes scanned over the rest of the scene in a split second-

-"krogan!" one of the marines had probably yelled. His uniform was black and gold, the others who came later sported a teal patch instead. They were a pair of the local zealots, not the attempted reinforcements. "A deserter!" the other one must've yelled, or thought, or otherwise made his intentions clear. There would've been surprise, from the krogan, then, and maybe anger and frustration. He didn't hesitate to defend himself.

There, on the floor-

-blood dripped down the wounded krogan's leg as he ran, every step an exercise in shutting out the pain. But he was krogan, possessed of an incredible natural regeneration; a regeneration that could match or even exceed the output of an adaptive bone marrow biomod. With every step, he regained that little bit more of his strength. But it made it harder to move. He slammed his shoulder into one of the protruding pipes, leaving a dent and alerting the pair of on-edge batarian marines. But why so little blood? Had it clotted already, only opening when he made a sudden, sharp movement?

A salvaged weapon, the body-check, that brief exchange of fire, and then… where did he go?

"This way," Shepard deduced, picking through the fallen batarian marines. They had crossed the gulf of space from ship to ship, only to run into Shepard's ranging search parties. No doubt their interference had only further made things difficult for the team medic.

_'I have no excuse,'_ she had said. Shepard huffed under her breath. She had half dozen fairly valid excuses, really; every one of them dead at her feet after a furious firefight

"Chakwas," Shepard said, motioning the woman to the right. She crouched low, and inspected a large, square gap in the maze of pipes and wires. The medic moved swiftly, watching the lieutenant's back, just in case more batarian marines rounded the corner looking for a fight.

"Did you find something?" the young support-class operative asked, but didn't avert her eyes from her overwatch.

"Definitely something," Shepard answered, running a finger along the floor. It came back smeared with alien blood.

-hard to squeeze through given his bulk, but there was room… he knew he could make it. Cut from one section to the next. But the awkward position reopened his wounds. Droplets of blood fall, smeared, as he crawled forward. Grating ahead. Uses knife. Surprise it cuts through the reinforced wire so easily.

So: he still had it, then. _Good_.

Shepard crouched low, narrowed her eyes, and started to give chase, even if it was only as a fast crawl.

"I know where he is," Shepard's mind-link transmitted her command and intentions with more detail than her voice ever could, though it dimmed with distance and her team was spread out. "Converge and cut him off!"

* * *

"X-ray sighted!"

Wrex raised his left arm over his face and forced up a fresh biotic **barrier** as one of the 'asari' commandos on an engineering catwalk drew a bead on him and opened fire. Brutally accurate three-round bursts splashed against his recovered shields, the display in the corner of his eye flashing red as they depleted at a shocking speed. Not slowing – that was what she wanted – Wrex continued to side-step for a few awkward meters as he turned and fired with his state arms shotgun. It couldn't hold a candle to his M-300, but for lack of anything better, it was all he had at the moment.

The asari continued to stand and shoot, only ducking when the first three shots landed on her shields, bringing them down. Until then, it was like she didn't even care. Most mercs ducked for cover the moment their shields started to flicker. But these asari… they just treated their shields like a disposable layer of armor. Given the plate they had under their shields, it made sense. They knew they could tank a few rounds, if that meant putting an equal number into their target.

Finally, mercifully, she ducked back behind the railing of her perch.

Wrex didn't try and press an attack on her, not from this suicidal position. He moved from a side-step back to a bounding run. His barrier was exhausted and his shields were down to one bar. He checked the charge on his shield boost. It was at ninety percent. _Almost there_.

A heavy thud up ahead instantly sent his instincts screaming a warning.

The krogan were not known for their exceptional eyesight, but Wrex could see a slight shimmer up ahead: little more than a faint ripple just a few inches above the floor. There was also a scuff on the grated metal floor. There was _something_ there, and there was no time or gimme prize for second guesses. A shotgun blast erupted from thin air just as Wrex hurled himself hard and sharp to the right, just barely missing him and blowing chunks out of a nearby maintenance console.

The second shot from the asari – they had tactical cloaks, too? – partly revealed her form as she advanced, some sort of shimmering purple mist appearing and disappearing around her. Wrex hunkered down onto one knee, knowing there was nowhere to hide or take cover, and overloaded his shotgun's safety settings via omni-tool. It was always a risky move, but the results could be devastating, even with an inferior state arms weapon.

Knowing he had precious little time to return fire, Wrex lined up and fired in a heartbeat, his purloined shotgun hissing and catching fire as it unleashed a swirling orange mass of molten metal. Battlemasters older than Wrex himself had coined the term **"carnage"** for it. It all but ruined a low quality weapon, but when it hit, the effects were devastating.

That was… _if_ it hit.

The asari moved sharply to the side, fast as lightning, avoiding the desperate shot.

"Nice try!' she announced, drawing a fresh bead on the krogan.

The explosion from behind, as the overloaded shotgun blast hit its backup target, knocked her clean off her feet. Wrex shielded his face as blazing hot steam erupted out of ruptured pipes and mixed with a heavy, poisonous mist from a severed coolant line. A smaller, secondary explosion followed the first, and the ship itself began to wail, emergency sirens announcing various warnings in short, clipped batarian.

Holding his breath, Wrex charged through the steam and fire and out the other side. A trio of shots hit him, even as he plunged through the concealing clouds, as the asari from before jumped down and took aim at his back. The shield boost probably saved his life, as three more bullets ripped into his kinetic barriers. Then, finally, he seemed to be in the clear.

Rounding a corner, checking his internal map, Wrex leapt over a makeshift barricade. Three batarians had manned it… not more than a few minutes ago. Tossing away his burned-out shotgun and snatching up a replacement with one smooth motion, the krogan rolled and broke into a run. His leg still hurt, but it wasn't impaired anymore. Even his formerly half-crushed quads were feeling better. There really was nothing like regeneration.

The sound of boots on metal not far behind urged him onward.

A sharp left turn came next, according to his map, and Wrex ended up face to face with a ladder to the level up. Jumping, he grabbed hold of the edge and pulled himself up. _Almost there._

He was halfway down the corridor when he heard two heavy thuds from behind. They were _jumping_ right up.

"Hey! Krogan!" a pair of batarian marines saw him coming as he rounded the corner. "You're not supposed to be here-"

"A little bit of advice," Wrex muttered, slipping between the duo. "You might wanna run."

"What?" the other batarian asked, but thankfully, didn't start shooting.

"Oh shit!" the first screamed, noting what was hot on the krogan's heels. "It's them!"

The sound of more gunfire from behind gave Wrex a second to quickly check his position.

"To all batarian forces aboard the Glorious Harsa," the Admiral's voice droned over the shipwide comm. "This is Admiral Kash'Raman. Surrender to Eclipse and you will not be harmed. I have already bargained for your fair treatment. Those who do not surrender will surely be killed, and for no gain. Though it pains us all, I urge you to lay down your arms and live to see and fight another day…"

"There goes _that_ contract," Wrex murmured, and broke into a run again.

He was almost to the end of a long stretch, when he heard the footfalls again.

A quick glance over his shoulder and a familiar black and purple 'asari' appeared. There was only one of them that Wrex knew with damage to her armor over her chest like that. It was _her_. And she was gaining.

Wrex summoned up one last biotic **barrier**, and triggered an armored **immunity** package for good measure. There was no way he intended to die, not this close to getting the hell off this doomed dreadnaught. It quickly proved to be a prudent gesture, as the asari opened fire as she ran, and bullets began to tear into his biotic and kinetic barriers. Wrex ignored the damage, and her.

Up ahead was one of the ship's airlocks, and attached to it, a batarian shuttle from the likely now destroyed _BNV Bokal_.

Rushing – some might say crashing – through the airlock, Wrex palmed the control panel. Small blast doors began to close, but they were slow. Too slow. Interminably slow. And the doors to the shuttle wouldn't open until the airlock was sealed.

There was only a crack left, when an assault rifle wedged into the gap.

The airlock siren wailed as it detected the obstruction, and then the rifle began to blind-fire, wildly. Roaring, Wrex slammed his fist down onto the rifle, trying to either pull it forward or knock it downward. It was that asari, again. For a second or two, they struggled over the rifle, but it stubbornly remained wedged in. A purple-wreathed hand tried to reach through, and in that instant, Wrex could imagine the carnage it could cause if she unleashed that strange singularity she had used before. It would tear the airlock apart, even if he seemed unusually resistant to its effects.

Seeing few other options left, he summoned a biotic push into his own fist and put his palm to the airlock's gap. It wasn't something he had tried before, but just as he'd hoped, the biotic throw ended up channeled into the narrow space. It knocked the asari back, and with her, that bizarre purple energy she had planned to use. Wasting no time, Wrex grabbed hold of the mangled assault rifle jammed into the door and pulled it forward. The blast doors sealed and locked and the airlock began to cycle.

Noting the control panel, Wrex slid a finger across it, activating the intercom.

"You know… I never got your name, asari," he stated, still breathing hard. Feeling the urge to get it, to hear the name of this female that had caused him so much trouble, that had almost killed him, he even offered a proverbial varren haunch as incentive.

"Wrex," he told her, giving his name first. "Urdnot Wrex."

From behind the blast doors' small window, he could see her stand up, her body smoking.

"Shepard," the asari replied. There was a cold fury in her voice, itself possessed of an unusual alien quality.

Whatever this asari was – mutant, cyborg, or just a plain old freak of nature – Wrex knew then and there that he hadn't seen the last of her. He patted the knife he had… _borrowed_… from her, now safely wrapped up and tucked into his armor's storage pouch. This, he could tell, was going to be the start of a beautifully violent relationship.

"Nice talking to you, Shepard," Wrex said, turning and striding into the empty batarian shuttle.

Shepard glared at the empty airlock, as the shuttle detached and took off.

"Ilena," she said, as two other operatives finally caught up, Chakwas among them. "There's a shuttle leaving from one of the airlocks. Number four, port side. Can you shoot it down?"

"Uhhh…" the genuine-asari article answered from her place on the bridge. "Hold on."

Shepard did, and began to stalk back into the ship and away from the now closed blast doors.

"There are a bunch of shuttles flying all over the place," Ilena finally answered with a more detailed picture of the outside. "Also, explosions. Lots of explosions. We're kind of in the middle of a big space battle. Our GUARDIAN lasers are on cool down, too…"

"I see," Shepard replied, checking her M-3 Predator.

The loss of the assault rifle was nothing major. But that knife? That was... vexing, and potentially troublesome.

"Was it that crazy krogan you were after?" Ilena asked. "He actually got away?"

"For now," Shepard growled. "But a short-range shuttle like that can't leave the system. There's nowhere for him to go but Camala. It might take time, but I'll find him again. This isn't over, not by a long shot."


	5. Chapter 5

A/N

These next two chapters are smaller than the last. As you might have noticed, at least for now, I'm working more on exploring background stuff, some R&D fun, characters, and things like that rather than straight-up techstomps, spacebattles or epic wars. Squad combat and stuff would be the exception, of course.

Thanks for the comments as well!  
I especially love FFN reviews, since they are gems I can treasure for years, even decades. Even if it is more difficult to respond to people here, compared to on a forum or thread.

* * *

(5)

* * *

Humans, Ilena had decided after some preliminary study, were actually pretty hot.

It helped that they were so damn asari-like, so they had the real 'forbidden fruit' kink factor going for them, especially the females. All the ones with the muscle enhancing gene-mods were a bit bulky and muscular by asari standards, but it certainly wasn't off-putting. They were like really exotic asari, and that was kind of hot.

Then there were the guys – the males – of which she'd really only seen a few back on Arcturus. Now, asari were an all-female race, along with a heckuva lot of other critters on their Thessia. Even still, asari had known about male-versions of animals in other animal orders. Asari shared an ancestor _waaaaaay_ back with a little beastie that was both male and female. There had always been a niche "scifi" type that had tried to imagine what a gender-swapped asari would look like, and this really got a double kick in the rump first when the Protheans had been discovered to be visiting aliens and then when the Salarians had dropped by for a visit on the Citadel. As it became clearer and clearer that most life in the universe was bi-gendered, a lot of asari had started to wonder what their race would look like if they were the same.

Now Ilena knew.

There had been quite a lot of speculative scifi about it, but human males _had_ to be just about the closest an asari would ever get to the real thing. Sure, the skin color was off, and they had that neat soft-hair-stuff instead of stiff tentacles, but it was all there: the normal asari features given a distinctively masculine spin. It was surreal and naughty and awesome all wrapped into one. Now… if only they weren't all so damn stuffy! That one problem aside: it was an entire race of kinky quasi-asari hotness. The porno industry back home was going to do absolutely _nuts_ when the humans finally revealed themselves to the rest of the galaxy.

"Ilena?" Shepard asked, as if sensing her companion's thoughts were straying somewhere foolish.

"Yes, eyes front and paying attention!" Ilena chirped, striking a stiff salute.

Secretly, the asari commando cursed her often crazy hormones. It wasn't easy being a maiden sometimes. At the same time, one's maidenhood only lasted one or two hundred years, and then you were a prim and proper matron with a bunch of snot-nosed kids holding you down. _Blegh_. Ilena wanted to gag at the thought. Time was truly the galaxy's biggest bitch.

But, yes: paying attention to the cute guy on the holo! Specifically to his words. Definitely _not_ imagining what he looked like naked or what that black hair under his nose and round his mouth felt like. Paying attention to important words now. Yes.

"…the situation in-system appears to have settled down for the time being," Commander Steven Hackett explained from behind a desk on a human ship somewhere in unknown space. "The Hegemony is still licking its wounds and the Indris Interim Government on Camala is about to convene to discuss system security and draft a constitution and declaration of principles. As you know, we have a number of agents working directly or indirectly for us within the various rebel movements, but we do not yet know the exact form their new government will take. The current consensus among our xeno-sociologists is that the batarians will attempt to form an assembly-based government based on some mix of turian and asari examples."

Hackett queued up a number of floating vid-displays, showing parts of the Indris system.

"We've invested very heavy in the success of Operation Athena, and so far the Senior Commander and the Council are pleased with the results. We need to ensure that the new batarian government can secure its hold on Indris and, eventually, spread the rebellion to other nearby systems. Our goal is to be either the complete collapse of the Hegemony or its effective containment. The Eclipse organization will be playing a leading role in this, and that is where you come in, Ilena Thanoptis."

"Ready for all kinds of action, Commander!" Ilena said, enthusiastically, sticking out her hand and giving a thumb's up. It seemed to be the human way of showing excitement and approval.

"Don't – don't do that," Shepard said, reaching out to lower Ilena's hand.

The young human Lieutenant Commander at the end of the line graced the pair of women with a raised eyebrow. "Yes. To begin with, let me thank you for agreeing to assist us. I will be your immediate superior in XCOM, overseeing all aspects of Operation Athena, and as such I will determine your ongoing level of funding from the overall pool allotted to this project. As Eclipse grows and shows promise dealing with regional threats, funding will increase accordingly. In order to avoid a money trail, we will primarily be funding you via direct eezo transfers which are then sold on the Citadel galactic market. Your accounts will be managed and overseen by XCOM staff to ensure compliance."

"So the better Eclipse does the more money you'll send us." Ilena nodded her head. It was simple enough. "But that probably won't be all of it, right?"

"Correct," Hackett replied with a single, curt nod. "Eclipse must not simply be our cover for operations in Citadel space; it must play the part of an _actual_ private security firm. This means recruiting, expanding, and taking additional jobs to increase revenue and intergalactic exposure in the media. The larger and more successful Eclipse becomes, the easier it will be for us to operate through you. So long as your employers' offers do not interfere with XCOM operations or objectives, I expect you to act on them appropriately. Legitimate jobs will also further mask our clandestine funding of Eclipse."

Ilena grinned happily. "Can do!"

"There should be plenty of work in the immediate area, on behalf of the Indris Interim Government and other friendly or 'allied' organizations. Missions submitted to Eclipse will be vetted by XCOM and further information about their importance, if any, will be made available. We have already sent a data packet regarding friendly organizations within batarian space, and would appreciate it if these groups were given priority. Of course, if XCOM requires your assistance or an operation on our behalf, we expect it to be fulfilled with all due haste. Failure to comply could have serious consequences for the continuation of the Eclipse project… pending review."

"XCOM Council missions are super important." Ilena made a mental note of that, however obvious it was. Pissing off your mind-controlling benefactors was probably a very bad idea. Like a 9 or 8 on the Bad Idea scale, right next to kicking a krogan in the quads and calling him a leaf-chewing pyjack. "Check!"

Hackett paused again, as if trying to gauge whether Ilena was really grasping the seriousness of the situation or not.

"Yes… finally, there is also the matter of Eclipse's headquarters…"

* * *

The _BNV Wagrig_

..to now and forever be renamed the _AML Ilena's Party Boat_-

"We're not calling it your Party Boat."

"Really? …Fine."

The _BNV Wagrig_.

Technically, the ship was named after a now-extinct predator that once stalked the plains and grasslands of Khar'shan: a nasty beast with four eyes and a jagged hole full of teeth. Much like the batarians themselves, really, except this critter walked on four legs instead of two.

According to the records, the _Wagrig_ was a modular cruiser on long range 'deniable patrol' in the Terminus Systems. This was the sort of job that, if inquired about by Citadel authorities, involved a lot of anti-piracy and anti-insurgency work. In reality, everyone knew it meant raiding and slaving out in the Terminus where no one gave half a damn. It was considered a pretty cushy and profitable assignment for an aspiring batarian captain. A Hegemony cruiser was sufficiently large to have few rivals outside the boundaries of civilized space, so it was safe enough, and it was still small enough to not raise any red flags among the few local powers that did care.

This particular cruiser had the misfortune of being singled out for capture by XCOM some time ago.

It had been scouting out potential raiding targets, camped around a gas giant in some no-name system, when the humans must've set on it with their actual combat ships. Ilena still didn't know a whole lot about them, despite taking a couple rides in human ships of various sizes, but the _Wagrig_ had been boarded and taken intact. There was no sign of the original crew and Ilena sure as sugar wasn't going to ask what happened to them. The ship had simply and quietly vanished out in the Terminus… as so many ships did, from time to time.

Now, it was back, and it was going to be the main base for Eclipse.

"How about the Halo?"

"I'd rather not."

"What about the Galactica, the legendary asari fighter pilot?"

"I prefer 'Syzygy.'"

"I… can't even… _begin_ to pronounce that."

Eventually, they settled on the name _Tevura_.

"Tevura is the goddess of love, sex, travel, and law," Ilena explained as they walked around to look over the rebuilt and redesigned ship's bridge. "When maidens used to run away from home to have adventures in far off lands, and to find mates who weren't like their cousins or whatever, they prayed to Tevura to guide and protect them. Naturally, with a lot of hot-headed young asari running around, it quickly became pretty obvious we needed rules and stuff to keep them from killing one another or being killed."

"When we greet strangers," Ilena explained to the human next to her with a wink, "we do so in the name of Tevura. That goes for aliens, too, even the brain-eating kind like you, Shepard."

"Asari brains _are_ my favorite," the human replied with a single short chuckle.

"The gas giant Tevura was _also_ where I grew up," Ilena continued, more softly than before. "On a science station over the Great Azure Rift…"

So: The _AML Tevura _it was.

It was also distinctly asari, furthering that illusion the humans liked so much.

"Traditionally, the position of base XO has been a desk job-" Shepard paused by a railing to look down as a vast holo-projection of the Indris system filled the central disk of the command center, part of an expansive human-designed nav system. "-but these are not traditional circumstances, and I'm not much of a desk jockey. I'll continue to be your liaison and XO, but since I'm also likely to be called on to execute missions from time to time; Lieutenant Sanders will also be available to fill in for me. She'll _also_ function as XCOM covert liaison to Eclipse's Research Division, once it is fully set up. We should visit her right away, as she and Chakwas have some sort of special project in mind."

"So I'm in charge, huh?" Ilena couldn't resist ribbing the tall human woman with her elbow. "Commander Thanoptis. Oh yeah."

"You're in charge, yes," Shepard agreed, with the caveat, "so long as you play along."

"Lucky for you and me and the galaxy, playing along is one of my specialties!" Ilena remarked, actually feeling quite good about the whole situation. Not just about being nominally in charge – that was awesome, too – but the fact that this was a chance to do something actually productive, while still giving the old one-finger-salute to the stuck-up-their-unmentionables matriarchs back home. The fact that Shepard had sort of veto or whatever over decision making wasn't really that big a deal. If the situation was reversed, she'd be protecting her investments, too, and from the look of it, human benefactors were a lot better than the alternatives.

"The ship has been heavily modified to better serve as headquarters for Eclipse," Shepard went on to say, as they walked around the heavily automated bridge. "At least to start with, we'd like Eclipse to focus on getting the most out of conventional Citadel technology…"

"You don't want to draw attention by whipping out the ray-guns, right?"

"Plasma and particle weapons, _not_ 'ray guns,'" Shepard corrected her. "And that's it, exactly. Eventually, we can establish Eclipse as a leader in cutting edge research and development. Only after that can we introduce more exotic technology, and even then on a case-by-case basis."

"So I need to set up a research branch, and after they've made progress, _then_ we can get the scifi stuff?" Ilena asked. It seemed like a bit of a hassle, but the progressive approach made a sort of sense.

"The same goes for engineering," Shepard replied. "We've set up substantial areas of the cruiser for research, development and engineering. There is a basic fabrication bay on level three and research facilities on level two, plus room for some limited expansion and upgrading of both. This cruiser was built to haul around large amounts of cargo – from raids, we believe – so weapons and shielding are also less than on a fully militarized cruiser of this size and type. This is an immediate concern, so after we captured it, we did some clandestine refitting of the hull using our own alloys. The ship should, as a result, be extremely tough… the otherwise conventional kinetic barriers and weapons can also be upgraded, if needed, but with Citadel technology."

"So there are lots of upgrades we can apply as Eclipse expands," Ilena concluded, and her human companion nodded. "Or that we get access to as we grow."

"I expect we'll need to set up other secondary bases as well, but this should be our main mobile command post. It is where we will coordinate all of Eclipse's activities throughout this region of space."

Anna Shepard led her over towards a pair of humans. Both wore full body armor, just like Shepard did at the moment, but they had opted to leave their helmets off and their faces visible. As there were no other asari or other Citadel races on the ship at the moment, there was no need to hide their faces. There was something else, there, too: a shimmering hologram. It quickly became clear as Ilena drew closer and the two women stepped aside.

"So, you're still alive after all," Daro'Xen remarked, her three-dimensional image projected in gold and orange hues. She still wore her enviro-suit. She sniffed in mock surprise. "Just like they say: the universe loves fools and asari."

"Hey!" Ilena smiled brightly at the familiar face. "Buckethead!"

"I told you not to call me that, Idiot."

"Ilena," Shepard cut in as the usual exchange resulted in the two women sharing a mutual glare. "This is Specialist Karin Chakwas. You've met before…"

"Yep!" Ilena stuck out her hand, a little stiffly, and Chakwas shook it very gently.

"Nice to meet face-to-face… commander," Chakwas said the rank with a wink and a grin, not mocking, just teasing. Just like all the human females modified for combat operations, she was a little taller than Ilena herself, though shorter than Shepard, and slimmer. Her hair was also a dark black, like space itself, cut short, and her eyes a dark shade of blue. She also smiled very earnestly, which Ilena found she liked right away.

Shepard continued with introductions. "Chakwas here is a field medic, combat certified, but she's also a medical doctor with a second degree in experimental xenobiology. Her expertise should be invaluable for getting Eclipse off the ground."

"And this is Specialist second class Kahlee Sanders-" Anna gestured towards the other human. She was a little taller than Chakwas, but what was most striking about her was her weave of brilliant, golden hair. Ilena had to slap down her own hand to keep from touching it. Humans came in such neat colors! And Kahlee's eyes were an icy blue, too. Ilena wondered if there were many humans with colors like that back… wherever the humans came from… or if it was more of their crazy genetic engineering. No: it _had_ to be more gene mods…

"Specialist Sanders is actually coming to us from one of our sister projects, Operation Ares," Shepard added, and Ilena quickly shook hands with the golden-haired human. "She's a specialist in VI, AI, computers and technical systems. In addition to data-security and management of automated resources in Eclpise, and acting as laison, she's been put in charge of developing a methodology for XCOM engineer-specialists, along with making improvements and combat modifications to omni-tools."

"A pleasure," Specialist Sander said, shaking more firmly than Chakwas had.

"So what's all this about?" Ilena asked, now that introductions were all out of the way. "Shepard mentioned a special project you were interested in...?"

* * *

"Councilor Soulon."

"Tevos!" Soulon stood, gesturing for his fellow ambassador to have a seat, even as he addressed her in his usual familiar manner. "Come. Sit. Eat!"

Tevos smoothed out her impeccable alabaster robes and took her seat opposite the salarian diplomat. Soulon relaxed into his own chair with a contented sigh and inhaled deeply, taking in the scents that wafted around the table. As was his way, they met for dinner to discuss certain delicate matters. As long as she had known him, the salarian _bon vivant_ had always seized any possible excuse to eat and show off his patronage of the galaxy's most and esoteric exotic culinary arts.

A primly dressed asari stood at the side of the table, the intermediary between the Councilors and the anxious chef or chefs in the kitchen. She was one of Soulon's personal aides, omnipresent when he wanted eye-candy to go with his five course meal. The little maiden was also extremely loyal to the salarian Councilor – refusing on several occasions to do any covert intelligence gathering on the side, no matter _how_ harmless. Tevos found two trays already waiting for her, and the young maiden revealed the Councilor's dishes with a professional flourish.

"For madam, raw Thessian oysters on the half-shell, with _kouru_, white _semeil_, sea salt and imported Balora caviar, and Thessian _Moche Rach_ wine," she introduced the first dish, and then the second, without missing a beat. "Chilled sava-melon soup, _ridder_, _kouru_, tang-_sa_, _tama_ oil, herbal spices and salt… the wedges are sour-_sa_, to taste, and it is garnished with medallions of great Illium crab."

Her favorite dishes; that was unusually generous of the salarian Councilor. Nevermind how he found out that these were her favorites in the first place.

"Delightful," Tevos said, dismissing the maiden. She delicately picked up a slice of sour-sa and squeezed it over the crab meat. "Thank you."

"For sir-" the young asari unveiled Soulon's own dishes, the first being a hideous mess of minced meat in a dough-like bowl. "-crème of Khar'shan oceanic lamprey, pulled and diced, poached in blood, served with crushed _machao_, _treek_, _spoa_, and _brek_. Sliced domesticated varren ham on the side and dusted batarian wray-crust for dipping."

Tevos instantly felt her stomach contract in disgust. Then the maiden revealed Soulon's other dish which was, amazingly, even more repugnant than crème of blood-sucking parasite…

"An assortment of eyes mignonette, compliments of the chef, served in fours on a bed of long and short grains and finely chopped varren tongue. The sauces provided are traditional _marak_, from the south, an egg-based _souvoku_, from the east, and a salty _brabaka_ from the west. Would the Councilor like a sprinkle of pepper on his eyes?"

"Yes, please," Soulon replied, gesturing to the revolting plate.

Without batting an eye or her own, the asari maiden garnished the salarian's dish with freshly ground pepper.

"Batarian cuisine?" Tevos inquired, trying not to look at the plate brimming with sets of unblinking eyes.

"I thought it might be appropriate." Soulon slowly stirred his lamprey-pie with a spoon before bringing a hefty helping of assorted fish-viscera to his lips. He quietly and politely slurped it up with a murmur of pleasure. "Fantastic. A strong ocean-aftertaste, but with a complex flavor… it reminds me of sho'lou pie but that dish is aged for half a year to bring out the medley of flavors…"

Tevos tried to not think about what the other esteemed councilor was eating and concentrated on her own meal, which was, at least, quite divine. The caviar in particular tasted fresh. It must have been jumped in from out of system less than a day ago. The ambiance was also pleasant enough, with very soft music playing that Tevos identified as from an elcor opera Soulon had sponsored on the Citadel a few months ago. This was a private dinner as well, with the large restaurant floor otherwise cleared of other sentients. A large glass window straddled the room, providing a clear view of the presidium beyond.

"It surprised me," Soulon admitted, the first to break the comfortable silence of their dinner. "The Hegemony continues to claim it has the situation 'under control.' Their capacity for double-speak and self-deception is truly remarkable."

"They see the prospect of turian peacekeepers anywhere in Hegemony space as unacceptable," Tevos reminded him, demurely sipping from her spoonful of melon soup. "Especially with Vitus's well known criticism of certain batarian traditions…"

Slavery, specifically.

"Indeed, and this is _hardly_ the first uprising you've seen in your tenure as Councilor," Soulon remarked with a small smile. "The others were quashed rather swiftly, just as our batarian collogue assured us this one would be. What were his words? That it would be pointless sending a Spectre, the situation was about to be resolved? And then they go and lose a dreadnaught and half the attendant fleet with it. Isn't it amusing… watching someone eat his own words?"

"Amusing for you, perhaps," Tevos replied. "The instability this is causing in the region is a concern for us all. The Hegemony is in a state of civil war, whether they publicly admit it or not. There are reports of fighting breaking out all throughout the Kite's Nest sector, even spilling over into the Terminus. The Hegemony is _supposed_ to be a _stabilizing_ influence. If it can't soak up the troubles from the Terminus and the Traverse, then what good is it?"

"I'd ask how effective it was at shoring up our Terminus border to begin with," Soulon argued, popping an eyeball into his mouth with a muffled squish. "It seemed to transmit the disease more than prevent it."

Tevos glanced away, running her spoon along the edge of her soup.

"And now," Soulon continued, despite the occasional chew. "We have another democracy in the galaxy, patterned after the asari model. I expect you'll be the first to formally welcome them to the Citadel?"

Tevos seemed less than enthusiastic at the prospect.

"The debate is ongoing," she answered, non-committal.

"Naturally," Soulon agreed with another knowing smile.

The asari were an e-democracy, where every citizen-asari had the right to participate in policymaking decisions via plebiscite. Debate within these circles was generally centered around and based on the positions of influential Matriarchs who championed or spearheaded various causes or initiatives. This led to a good bit of demagoguery and polarization, as asari adopted the causes of one matriarch or group of matriarchs as their own. It was no surprise how the most powerful 'wise women' among the asari could assemble fanatical retinues of younger maidens, devoted to their patron's causes, beliefs and philosophy. There were hundreds of such organizations throughout asari space.

Currently, there were two main factions leading debate when it came to the matter of the burgeoning batarian civil war. One faction supported their traditional Terminus bulwark in the form of the Hegemony, and feared what a general collapse into anarchy could result if it fell. Another more populist faction supported the abolitionist movement and the creation of a new, more egalitarian Hegemony. What both sides agreed on was that it would not do for the batarians to split into warring camps indefinitely. That would just extend the chaos of the warlike Terminus right up to the borders of Citadel Space.

"Vitus has already contacted the new batarian government through back channels." Soulon let slip the Hierarchy secret as he sipped from his wine glass. "They plan to meet before officially arriving at the Citadel."

"I suspected as much," Tevos replied, not letting the news visibly perturb her.

The turians had their own objectives and interests, of course. There were many in the Hierarchy and abroad calling for turian troops to move in and pacify the region, even without an invitation to restore order – specially, their brand of order. The matter was further complicated by the fact that there were turian separatists nearby, especially on the colony of Taetrus, who could look at the successes of the batarian rebel movement and become emboldened to further acts of insurrection and terrorism. Turian rebels finding refuge and safe haven across the border in rebel-controlled batarian space would be the one thing that would prompt a Hierarchy invasion, without question.

The turians would thus want certain _assurances_…

"The matter of batarian state debt will come up," Tevos thought aloud as she ate. "My economic advisors suggest we don't settle for anything less than twenty percent of what the Hegemony itself owes."

"If this new Batarian Republic is going to succeed, it will need money, and shackling it with Hegemony debt may be unwise," Soulon cautioned.

"We can provide for a grace period before the resumption of payments…"

Naturally, the volus and the intergalactic banks would also need to have their say and their assurances. Soulon chuckled as they danced around the big issue. That being diplomatic recognition of the Batarian Republic itself. The Hegemony was already furious that a diplomatic retinue from the rebel camp was even being allowed onto the Citadel. While repeating the party line that the Hegemony was only fighting 'pirates and disorganized malcontents,' it was unbending in requests that any rebels that came to the Citadel be seized and given over to the Hegemony for punishment as criminals.

It wouldn't happen.

The decision had already been made. Official recognition of the rebels wouldn't be forthcoming, not right at the start, but neither would they be turned away. The asari wanted to start negotiations for reconciliation and reform in the Hegemony as a whole. The turians wanted to prop up an alternative to the Hegemony that played by galactic rules, or, probably, one that was even turian-aligned. And the Salarian Union? They had interests of their own in the region, too.

"I'd like to talk about Eclipse," Soulon began, having just finished his meal. He gestured the asari maiden over and she quietly took away his plates.

"_Eclipse_ again," Tevos grumbled, not bothering to hide her distaste. "I am _sick_ of hearing about Eclipse."

"Please," Soulon insisted, plying his fellow Councilor with a fresh glass of wine, "humor an old salarian?"

Tevos saw though his ploy easily enough – humor an old salarian indeed – but decided to let it slide.

"Very well," she agreed with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"Tell me, honestly, Tevos," Soulon implored, touching the rim of his glass to hers with a ting. "Do you know who these women are?"

"Would that I did," the asari Councilor replied, quaffing her wine in a somewhat improper gusto. "And before you ask, no, they aren't mine. I don't know what Matriarch is behind them… or even **if** a Matriarch is behind them at all. We believe them to be from an asari colony out on the Attican Traverse. Matriarch Dilinaga led a large party of separatists to Styx Theta and disappeared there to create a 'new society' shortly after the Rachni Wars. Their use of heavy armor and assault tactics is also similar to Dilinaga's tactics during the war. Our analysts believe that these asari are most likely descended from that party."

"Are you certain?" Soulon asked, rather seriously.

"Reasonably certain," Tevos assured him. "Every asari and their mother have a pet theory about where these girls came from. Some fools think they may be asari born from 'unholy unions' with some new race. Or ardat-yakshi, which I'm _sure_ you're aware of, so don't pretend to be surprised. In other words: the usual nonsense, Soulon, just like what you'd expect to find on the extranet these days. Whoever they are, they're playing their newfound celebrity close to their chests. I don't like it, but I can live with it. It just vexes me to see so many blowing so little out of proportion."

"Of course," the salarian Councilor conceded, leaning back in his chair. The asari waitress came by again, this time with a desert platter.

"Lusian sweet cakes, drizzled with _prolotha_ syrup and confectioner's sugar," the maiden said, placing the large dish in the center of the table for both Councilors to enjoy. "The plate is very cold, madam, sir, so please use the tongs. Enjoy."

"Lusian sweet cakes?" Tevos asked, her eyes lighting up with delight as she reached for the insulated ceramic tongs. "Ah, Soulon, now I remember why I put up with you and your spies. By the Goddess, I swear you're trying to make me as fat as you are!"

"Fat?" the salarian ambassador laughed, patting his generous midsection. "Please, Councilor, I'm pleasantly plump."

He smiled as they ate, but his thoughts were really on what Tevos had said about Eclipse.

They were complete unknowns until just recently, when they were hired to assault the _Glorious Harsa_ during the so-called Second Battle of Camala. No one knew exactly how many asari worked for Eclipse or how many had participated in the attack. Speculation ran anywhere from ten to a hundred. There was so much the galaxy simply didn't know.

What was known was that Eclipse had been registered as a Private Security Firm with the Volus Corporate Security Registry a quarter-cycle ago. It had done nothing since then, right up to the Hegemony invasion of Indris. Since then, leaked footage from the assault on the _Glorious Harsa_ had become a sensation on the extranet… and a fiasco for the Hegemony, which had initially and very publically claimed that the Harsa has suffered 'engine failure' and withdrawn to be repaired.

Exactly how Eclipse had taken the dreadnaught was still a topic of much debate, but it seemed to be the result of rebel infiltration into the ranks of the crew and marines onboard. With much fanfare and celebration on Camala, Eclipse's last recording was of the ceremony by which the Interim Government assumed control of the vessel and the other defected craft from the battle.

But that had not been the end of it… not by a long shot.

The mystery of the group had attracted a cult following on the extranet. An Eclipse site on Spacebook had already garnered more than a hundred million hits and nearly as many likes. No one even knew if it was a legitimate site for the group on the Extranet or just a fan-made shrine. It had already been adopted by many disparate abolitionists groups and student organizations, especially in asari space. There was a particular appeal there, among the idealistic maidens of the Asari Republic, as the only face so far identified as a leader among Eclipse was one of their own.

"I'd like to show you something interesting," Soulon offered, and Tevos looked up from nibbling on her chilly sweet cake. Her eyes narrowed and her brow creased as she deduced this was probably something that would sour her desert. The maiden attending to them discretely took the opportunity to gather up the Councilor's empty plates.

"Does this look familiar to you?" Soulon snapped his fingers, and a holo-projection of a Spacebook page replaced one of the windows overlooking the presidium. For a moment, Tevos had probably expected it to be Eclipse's page, but this one was different. It was a personal page.

_Ilena Thanoptis._

"The illusive asari!" the maiden with their dishes remarked with wide eyes, "I didn't know she had an extranet-page!"

Tevos glared at her, and she quickly retreated with a little 'eep.'

"Where did you find that?" she asked the salarian Councilor.

"Spacebook network security is among the finest in the galaxy," Soulon replied, finally reaching for a sweet cake of his own, plucking it off the ice-cold bowl with tongs. "Nonetheless, we have our ways. This page was deleted some time ago and purged from their official databanks. It took some digging to re-compile it. Note the last personal entry."

"Hey, everyone, gone to the Terminus to have sexy adventure times," Tevos read the timeline post with a groan. "Don't wait for me to come back."

It was also noted that Rana Thanoptis "liked" the above.

"And the posts before that… are just two pages of pictures about guns and shoes," Tevos realized, and slowly shook her head. "And this is the supposed mastermind behind Eclipse?"

"Maybe, maybe not," Soulon ventured to say, "I intend to look into it. I just wanted to be sure my inquiries didn't uncover anything… unseemly on your end."

"It won't," Tevos promised him, snatching up another sweet cake and biting into it. She licked a dribble of jelly filling off her lower lip. "I know exactly what you're thinking, Soulon. These are asari, advancing asari interests, propping up a batarian rebel movement that has adopted asari principles. If I were in your shoes, I might suspect something as well, but Eclipse is not on our official or _unofficial_ payroll. You have my word on that."

"Fair enough."

Insomuch as he trusted anyone, Soulon trusted Tevos to be telling the truth, just this once. Eclipse wasn't a cat's paw of the asari Republic. That was overall good news: it made things much more interesting. And things were about to get very interesting indeed. Soulon already suspected Tevos would be recommending Tela Vasir as the Council's Spectre to look into the situation in Indris, but her main concern was with the batarian rebellion and its containment. Not Eclipse.

What Tevos didn't know and what she also knew better to ask was if the Union already had STG in-system. Which they – which _he_ – did. Tevos knew him all too well to bother. There was nothing like a nice surprise to go with dinner, after all.


	6. Chapter 6

.

* * *

(6)

* * *

The Party Boat was pretty empty, so far.

Not that it was completely empty or anything, there were still humans milling around doing things. A bunch of them were in the ship's gym, and others had congregated around the new research and development wings to set things up and establish the links between Eclipse and Arcturus – or maybe a sub-base of Arcturus, Ilena wasn't sure – and the last of the human crews were doing some last-minute refitting of the ship. They'd been spaceworthy and zipping around doing missions for a while now, but it was still mostly empty space and she was still the only alien on board. Hopefully, that would change a little bit in the quarter-cycle to come.

Wandering down to the galley to get a bite to eat, Ilena notice the light on at Chakwas's medical bay. Surely the human wouldn't mind a visit or a little talk, would she? She'd seemed very friendly before. Deciding it was worth a try to stop by and check in, Ilena tapped open the door.

Doctor Karin Chakwas was out of her armor and in a mostly-white laboratory type outfit. Her dark-black hair was pulled back into a bun and she wore a mask over her nose and mouth while she worked. Strapped to a partly-sunken table of some sort was a dead krogan in Blood Pack colors. He was one of the casualties from Eclipse's last mission. A dead vorcha occupied the table next to him, pieces of it removed and delicately placed on floating disks that hovered over the corpse, permitting most of the inside of the body cavity to be physically examined without the parts being disconnected.

"Hey there, doc!" Ilena put on her most cheery smile despite the somewhat macabre sight. Not like she hadn't seen dead krogan or vorcha before, just usually not so much of said dead krogan and vorcha. Luckily, XCOM's familiarity package had come with a wealth of fun human phrases. "What's up?"

"Oh, Commander Thanoptis!" Chakwas turned around, omni-tool scalpel glowing in her right hand. "Is there something you need help with?"

"I was just poking around, seeing who's doing what, and being a curious pain in the ass," Ilena explained, pulling out a little rotating chair and taking a seat. "If I'm being too bothersome, don't hesitate to boot me back outside!"

"Will do, commander," Chakwas promised, but it sounded like she was joking. She activated something on her omni-tool and an energy field encapsulated the two corpses. "I was just taking a little break from that special project to do some general research. I was just about finished up here, anyway."

"Finished doing what?"

"Studying the enemy," the doctor explained, dismissing her flash-forged omni-tool scalpel and taking a seat by her desk at the center of the medical bay. "Specifically, I'm running some tests on the regenerative abilities of these krogan and vorcha we keep running into. Their physiology and the mechanisms behind their regeneration are different than what we use for our own gene-mods."

"Different or _better_?" Ilena asked. She still didn't know, much less understand, how much of this human gene-engineering stuff worked. It might be nice to have a few things to surprise Buckethead next time they spoke. Maybe show the quarian that she wasn't an idiot after all.

"Different," Chakwas stressed, though she did think about it a few seconds before answering. "Our adaptive marrow mod was designed to help wounded soldiers recover faster post-mission. Only later, as the true possibilities behind MELD enhancement became clear, did we realize it could be enhanced to work on the battlefield. The mod has been steadily improved over time, and the results are really quite extraordinary."

"Krogan, like that one-" the medic pointed over her shoulder at the deceased krogan in the stasis field "-have a natural regeneration factor that continues to work, even after brain death. Major Shepard did quite a number on that poor fellow, I believe she mistook him for another krogan she knew, and put several very large holes in his braincase. Despite this, by the time I got the body on the ship, many of the non-fatal wounds he had taken were already healed. As an experiment, I kept his body alive, in a sense, and he has since regenerated almost completely."

"That's… a little creepy," Ilena admitted. Eh. Humans. "But it proves a point, I guess? So krogan regeneration is best regeneration?"

"Again, different rather than better," Chakwas replied. "Human regeneration is based around stabilizing a body after serious or otherwise fatal injury. Together with the secondary heart, it allows a human to remain at least somewhat functional on the battlefield despite otherwise massive and overwhelming shock and trauma. Wounds even a krogan could not survive. But on the down-side, days or even weeks are still required post-battle for a human to make a full recovery. Krogan regeneration is superior in the speed with which it can recover from less serious injuries and with respect to the post-mission recovery time. They have backup organs, but those don't regenerate nearly as quickly."

"So, on the battlefield, you kill a krogan by hitting them with something big that they can't recover from, and you kill a human by hitting her with a lot of little injuries she can't deal with?" Ilena surmised.

"That's one way of looking at it," Chakwas admitted, and then held out her right hand, motioning towards the other body. "As for the vorcha… their adaptions are unique, and we never got many samples of them back to Arcturus. Their regeneration effect is slower than ours or the krogan's, but is coupled with a natural adaptation that attempts to counter the damage done in the long term. They can even, theoretically, regrow entire limbs without medical treatment – something neither humans nor krogan can do."

"I'll be forwarding my findings to Central within the week," she added, relaxing a bit into her chair. "Together with the other research done at Arcturus and elsewhere, we may see a new improvement to our gene mods based on refinement of krogan and vorcha physiology."

"Do you ever worry about all these… mods… making you not as human as you used to be?" Ilena asked, fidgeting a bit at what had to be an uncomfortable question, but it was one she had wondered about before. "It's hard to imagine asari trying to modify themselves to be more krogan or turian or whatever. I agreed to get the eye implants, but I'm honestly not sure how much more I should get. How do you humans do it?"

Chakwas sighed and, after a few seconds of thought, queued up something on her omni-tool. It was a picture.

"Hey! A baby human!" Ilena leaned forward to get a better look at the picture. There was a woman in the picture, Chakwas herself, and she was holding a little creature that had to be an infant human. It was chubby and fat-faced, just like an asari baby, and it had a little bit of sparse red hair on top.

"Is that yours?" she asked, pointing to the child.

Chakwas shook her head. "No, she's a friend's… I just delivered her. But that child you see is human. She was born human. No matter what she chooses to look like, or what modifications she has done to her when she gets older, she _is_ what she _was_ under our laws."

Ilena groaned in dismay as the adorable picture vanished, back into the encrypted recesses of the medic's omni-tool.

"Is it _really_ that simple?" she asked.

"It wasn't at first," Chakwas answered with a shake of her head. "But we've had a century to adapt, and if nothing else, humans are good at adapting."

"What about you?" Ilena returned to her chair and shot a finger towards the combat medic. "You look pretty normal."

"All of the humans you'll see came out of XCOM. Our mods are combat-mods, and for various reasons, we don't allow cosmetic changes to the baseline human form." Chakwas held up her arms, and then pointed to her eyes and her chest. "Adaptive bone marrow and strength, standard eye enhancement, secondary heart, bioelectric sensor skin, and of course-" she pointed to her head. "-neural enhancement… these are the standard combat mods everyone has. Except for a few exceptions…"

"Did you sign up to get the mods, then?" Ilena wondered. Maybe it was part of the human recruitment package, back wherever they called home.

"Me? Oh, no!" Chakwas laughed easily at the suggestion. "I enlisted right out of medical school, not too long ago. I only had minimal gene mods and I was happy with that. Good eyes, good health. That was enough. But Earth was lacking in… adventure, I guess?"

The doctor sighed wistfully, as she remembered.

"For all the scars the war left behind, Earth was so safe and secure. It felt like a big cradle. I wanted to get out and see the universe. There was still fighting out on the fringe, and there were soldiers who needed to be cared for. Maybe even dark and handsome ones with wounded hearts only a young woman could mend?" She laughed again at the absurdity of it all. "It didn't take long for me to realize there wasn't much romance in patching someone up with med-mist, or sprinting to get to a wounded man while plasma rains down around you. But XCOM is my family, and my family needs good doctors and medics. For all our modifications, we're still human, and we're still mortal."

Ilena returned Chakwas' earnest grin, glad that she'd stopped by to talk to the woman.

"Thanks, doc. You've given me a lot to think about."

* * *

Shepard and two other humans were down in the ship's gym. It was a place where, Ilena had quickly learned, her quasi-XO spent much of her free time. All three humans were running in place on some sort of treadmill – a rather clever and patently obvious invention that had eluded the rest of the galaxy mostly due to most of the galaxy not being populated by masochists. The last time she had been by, Ilena had made the mistake of trying to join in. Asari were built just like humans, after all, and there didn't seem to be any real differences between the ways an asari ran in place or a human did, even with those weirdo gene-mods they had.

Not so. One thing she had quickly learned was that even unmodified humans were a race surprisingly well adapted to running. They just kept _going_ and _going _and_ going_, kilometer after kilometer after Goddess cursed kilometer! After keeping up for two of said agonizing kilometers at a full run, Ilena had promptly bowed out and retreated to get a snack… and a bucket of water to dip her head in. She had no intention of making that same mistake today. Let Shepard and the other humans do their insane endurance thing. She'd stick with walking, her treadmill pace set permanently on 'L' for 'leisurely.'

What Shepard and the others were going to do once other aliens started to come onboard, Ilena wasn't sure. They certainly wouldn't be able to strut around like they were now. Maybe they'd do like quarians and just wear enviro-suits or body armor all the time? That was probably the easiest solution, especially of Chakwas and Sanders' new research didn't pan out, but it would also drive half the aliens crazy trying to figure out what their counterparts were hiding. Ilena knew she'd be taking every chance she could to get a peek at her mysterious co-workers, just like that one time she'd trailed a quarian around for three days, trying to get a look at him inside his suit.

Nosiness and curiosity were universal forces of nature! Plus, the thought of Shepard in a quarian-like suit, death-glaring at a turian as he tried to hit on what he assumed to be a 'fellow dextro'… seeing that would _definitely_ be worth a credit or two!

Munching on a human nutrient bar – the cover to it proclaimed 'Good for your MELD! Good for YOU!' whatever that meant – Ilena ducked into the changing room and quickly found her locker. Once again, the similarity between human and asari worked in their favor.

It had been easy for her to get some human-designed 'exercise' clothes. They were functional and pretty similar to the full-body mesh that asari usually wore to better allow their skin to breathe when they practiced fighting or meditation or sports. Humans supposedly had something like _five million_ sweat pores spread out all over their bodies. Asari did it a little differently. Most of their sweat glands were clustered together in specific areas that blushed red with blood. Kind of like Chakwas had said before, the biology was similar, but different, too.

The standard outfit seemed to come in two styles. One was a single-piece body suit, most like the asari models, that covered the wearer from neck to toes. It was made out of an insulating fabric that absorbed sweat and automatically cooled down in response to body heat, at least as long as it was under a light. The material wasn't effective at cooling when it was too dark. An internal battery and regulation system served both as a backup and as a means of monitoring one's vitals.

The only modification to it that stood out as unusual was the area around the chest. Apparently humans were a lot squishier there than asari were, so the exercise gear was made with some sort of sculpted harness. Shepard had called that type of harness a 'bra.' Which was sort of a funny name, wasn't it? Calling it a 'rack-rack' was must better! Hopefully the name change would catch on soon. Either way, Ilena had thought, she _finally_ had a step-up on her female human rivals! Asari boobs were _still_ number one in the galaxy! Not that they'd had any serious rivals before humans came along, but still: ASARI Fuck Yeah.

The other style of outfit was functionally the same as the first, but with the material stripped down to just a narrow band around the chest and another small piece around the pelvis. Shepard and another woman were wearing this sort of outfit, the third, like Ilena, wore the more normal full-body piece. Now changed and recharged by a nice little snack, fluffy sweat bands around her wrists and ankles, she hopped up onto one of the treadmills and started to _walk_.

Oh yeah, power walking, coming through!

Another bonus of making a cursory visit to the gym was the chance to human-watch a bit. Humans were pretty scary on the battlefield, but off of it, they were really pretty normal. Some were more intense than others, like Shepard, but most would fit in pretty well among asari… maiden asari, anyway. Not so much the matriarchs and matrons. She watched as two of the women squared off on a mat to practice some sort of fighting. One of them wore padded gloves and the other punched or kicked the gloves. It looked pretty fun... a lot more fun than commando training, at least.

Shepard, meanwhile, was doing some sort of exercise where she lowered herself nose to the floor and then back up, only the tips of her toes and her right index finger touching the ground. Up and down she went, and after a moment regaining her shock at the crazy woman doing something appropriately crazy, Ilena relaxed and let herself stare, just a bit. Sometimes, Shepard sort of reminded her of her sister Rana… except she was obsessed with fighting instead of science.

It was also really clear, yet again, how Shepard had trained and sculpted her body. Humans needed to do some minimal exercise, Ilena had heard, to keep some of their gene-mods in tip-top condition. Almost certainly none of them had to work as hard as Shepard chose to. The brown-haired human had much more well defined muscles on her arms and legs than any asari Ilena had seen before, even older commandos, and you could even see the outline of muscles on her toned stomach. On the other end of the mass effect field, Shepard had a bit more of a rear-end than most asari, and a slightly bigger chest, though at least _that_ wasn't more muscle.

The newly promoted acting-Major certainly filled her exercise outfit in _all_ the right places-

"You should be less obvious when you stare at others," Shepard stated, eyes closed as she entered her next set of push-ups.

"**Gah!** _Staring?_ **What? **_Me?_" Ilena fixed her eyes forward and started to jog, cheeks puffing up as she sucked in air. "Don't be ridiculous!" A boisterous laugh escaped her lips. "Aahahaha! We asari are _always_ on the lookout for danger when we run! It's cultural! I mean biological! I mean instinctual! You can't blame me for my instincts! I have the diversity defense!"

"Damn," Shepard cursed softly, rising from another push-up, "and I had so much respect for diversity, too."

Shepard went silent after that, and it took a few seconds before Ilena dared to look back over at her.

_Shepard was staring at her butt._

"Alright, alright, I get the point," the asari murmured self-consciously.

"Good." Shepard went back to her grueling, painful-looking excuse for exercise.

Ilena left her to it and focused on her light jog. "Hey, Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"What's that thing around your neck?"

Shepard didn't answer right away. In fact, she didn't answer at all, not until Ilena glanced back at her for a second, just to make sure she had heard the question. There was some sort of string around her neck and it looped through a little metal ring with grooves on the outside. It looked like it was made of silver or maybe white titanium. Shepard ran it through the fingers of her left hand before tucking it back into her top.

"An engagement ring," she finally said, resuming her reps.

The term sounded sort of familiar…

"What's an engagement ring?" she asked, not feeling up to playing the guessing game.

Shepard was slow to explain, but explain she did, after a few long seconds. "When humans want to pair up for a long time, or even a lifetime, it is customary for one to propose to the other. If the other person accepts, she wears a ring to symbolize her promise to marry. Or sometimes both of them wear each other's rings. It just… it's just a symbol, Ilena. That's all."

"Oh." The asari continued to run in place. There almost seemed to be a trace of something sad in Shepard's voice. Ilena was sure she hadn't just imagined it.

"You asari don't do that, I guess?" the human woman asked.

"Most asari go with the traditions of their mate," she explained, wiping a bit of sweat away from her forehead. "Turian traditions or krogan traditions or salarian ones… you know… but between just asari, we don't have anything really like that. Only when two asari formally unite do they exchange gifts and vows and stuff. Usually, it represents the willingness to share memories and emotions more than anything else. 'For however-many years, you and I will be one.' That's the idea. And most asari-asari couples don't stay together for more than two hundred years. Lifelong partners… that'd be much rarer. Most matriarchs just end up butting heads with other matriarchs. At least that's how it seems to _me_."

"I see."

"Shepard?"

"…yeah?"

"When you and Doctor Vahlen talked before, didn't she mention…"

"Hannah," Shepard answered, not waiting for the question. Ilena could hear the occasional huff as Shepard moved from one pushup to the next. "She's my daughter."

"So," Ilena asked, warily beating around the proverbial bush, "you're married?"

"Would've been," the assault soldier replied between push-ups, "…until Akuze."

Ilena slowed her run to keep an eye on the human woman. "What happened on Akuze? Is an Akuze a place or a thing or… what?"

Shepard glared up at her, mid-push-up. "You ask a lot of questions."

"I know! I do!" Ilena lamented, burying her face in her palms with a sob. "I can't help it! Whenever the chance to 'investigate' pops up I take it, even when I know I shouldn't! I have a _problem!_"

With a grunt, Shepard placed her palm flat on the floor and pushed, bouncing up and onto her feet in one smooth motion. Sweaty but hardly what one would call looking tired, she strolled over to the wall near the treadmills. Shooting a quick look over at the other sparring women, she discretely reached up to pat the faint outline of the ring over her collar, hidden behind her shirt.

"Akuze was a colossal clusterfuck," she said with a bitter huff. "You know our policy about exploring using the relays? It isn't like we can't or don't use them _at all_ or anything. We do. This was a few decades ago. Central was sending out scouting parties – this was before we ran into your Citadel races, keep in mind – and one of them was Akuze…"

Shepard frowned but lowered her eyes in reflection, running a hand through her hair.

"It was just a small time outpost. I hated it. I went in with a sour attitude, too," she admitted, her eyes still downcast. "I figured it was a dead-end posting. I wasn't the only one, either. Akuze was empty and the monitoring station there never picked up anything worth recording. It was me and five other operatives, the usual six-man squad, plus four backup SHIVs-"

Ilena had heard the term SHIV before. She wasn't sure, but it sounded like some sort of VI mech.

"-we went on patrol every now and then, but never saw anything except this big, bloated gas giant that was always on the horizon. But it wasn't just us six grunts. We were guarding a small team of scientists. They were the ones doing the real work and they were the reason we were there. It was really their outpost, not ours. We were on that rock for a year… a cycle, basically…"

She smiled a little, but just as quickly, it faded away.

"One of those scientists became Hannah's father," she explained, slowly crossing her arms over her chest. "He was… a sweet guy. Smart. He thought he was a comedian, too. I had to keep reminding him how bad his jokes were. Grandma would've liked him. One day he borrowed time on the base's Fab and made this ring out of spare titanium. He designed it himself and printed it out in secret. Then he cornered me when I came back from patrol and asked to marry me."

"What'd you say?" Ilena asked, slowly stepping off the treadmill. "Yes, right?"

"I believe my exact words were 'let's do it' but he coaxed a proper yes out of me later." She looked up, and there was a hard look in her eyes. "A few weeks later, something happened with the moons… some sort of magnetic alignment. That was the first time any of us had ever seen a thresher maw."

Ilena's heart skipped a beat. A thresher maw. Everyone knew about those things, though no one knew who was responsible for spreading them around half the galaxy. Supernaturally tough and monstrously powerful, a single maw could destroy armored vehicles and wipe out an entire colony, just by itself. Only the krogan, mad in their own unique way, saw any good in the horrible moon-worms. Everyone else considered them a plague.

"The first one burrowed right up to the edge of the base," Shepard continued her story, reciting it with unnatural calm. "It must've sensed the vibrations inside and started spitting and shooting ultrasound. Just our luck, too, the first thing it wrecked was our flight pad. The Spaceranger ended up buried and we couldn't get to it. So the six of us scrambled to take the thing out-"

"On **foot**?" Ilena asked, aghast.

"There was no choice," Shepard argued. "Two of us distracted it while the other four flanked and surrounded it. We poured fire into it… and it screamed and thrashed like a stuck pig. It dove back down and came up on the other side of the outpost. It made us chase after it. I must've emptied four fill clips of alloy into it. Just me. That wasn't even what finally killed it, either. It was a bleeding mess in the end, too hurt to burrow, too angry to die. That was when the boss finally managed to put a blaster bomb into it."

She smirked at that memory, clearly enjoying it. "It ripped right down the middle, leaving all these sparkly little ribs poking up into the air. Like a big, bloody zipper. I was half covered in guts, right about to cheer, when I turned around and saw four more of the damn things. Something about the outpost or the moons whipped them into a frenzy. We tried to draw them away… but nothing worked. It was an _outpost_, not a _bunker_."

Shepard's upper lip curled, but her voice never wavered from its calm recital of the facts.

"So everyone died except me," she summed up the battle that followed. "They say I was the sole survivor… but Hannah survived, too. I never told anyone that I was pregnant. Not my CO and not my fiancé. I was on that damn moon for two months before a patrol picked me up. Hannah was born a half-cycle after that."

"Two months? Alone?" Two months alone on a moon full of thresher maws. Ilena wiped her brow again, feeling a trickle of sweat roll between her eyes. "I can't imagine what it must've been like. I mean, horrible, obviously, but-"

Shepard shrugged, as if it was nothing. "I spent the time fixing up the SHIVs and going hunting… and two years later, I came back to finish the job."

She pushed off the wall and began to walk over to the dead-weights near the sparring duo.

"What does that mean?" Ilena had to ask. "What do you mean you went back to finish the job? Do you mean you buried your dead friends? Found emotional closure? That sort of thing?"

"What I mean is… _there are no more thresher maws on Akuze_. My friends and I killed every single one of them. That's how I earned my nickname." Annabel Shepard grinned over her shoulder, and it was a look that could freeze the blood of an enraged krogan. "You've never heard it before? I'm the bloody Butcher of Akuze."

Shepard chuckled at the humorous title and motioned Ilena to follow her.

"Come on. Let's hit the weights. I'll spot for you if you spot for me."

"Uhm… sure…" Ilena hurried to keep up. "Hey, was it wrong that your story kind of turned me on?"

"Very."

"Oh, good. Good. I strive for consistency."

* * *

The shuttle dipped low and entered the Party Boat's small hangar bay without fanfare. They were some distance from any of the populated areas of Indris, settled around the yellow gas giant Hiba. A large batarian military outpost, called Kaver Station, had previously orbited the pegasid, but no lights came from where the station would normally be found. It was abandoned, and Hiba with it, at least for the time being. As the only gas giant in-system, it was only a matter of time before some commercial or state-run drift mining concerns set up shop on the unclaimed property. In fact, setting up a rudimentary tolling station for drive discharges was the official reason for one ship's visit to the planet.

The dreadnaught formerly registered as _Glorious Harsa_ had since been renamed the _Independence_ by the new Indris government. The Hegemony had deemed the ceremony that renamed the ship a mortal insult that 'would not go unavenged' and that the ship would be reclaimed and restored to honor, 'no matter the cost.' The frequently repeated threats did little to cow the growing numbers rebels, and since the disastrous invasion that crippled the Hegemony's fleet, harsh words seemed to be the Hegemony's primary weapon.

Still, well aware what a disaster it would be to lose the Independence, two small frigates hovered protectively by the dreadnaught. The three ships provided most of the artificial light to be seen in the area outside the hangar bay.

Ilena and Shepard waited in the hangar as the shuttle landed, the doors closed, and the bay re-pressurized.

Three figures emerged from the shuttlecraft, all three wearing batarian combat hardsuits. Two of the three were easily identified as ship's marines from the _Independence_. Their hardsuits were gray, but with yellow mountain-stripes like little waves over their collars and in a band around their upper arms. The gold-skinned batarian in the middle had a bright red officer's hardsuit – the color being common on the Terminus thanks to batarian traditions – with a bronze Admiral's chain wrapped around the right shoulder. A satchel or bag hung from his other shoulder. The two gray guards kept back to guard the entrance of the shuttle, eyeing the pair of masked and armored asari present with awe.

"Commander Thanoptis," the lead batarian greeted her with a bow of his head, down and to the left.

"Admiral Tak!" Ilena said, returning the head-bob.

"This way, please," Shepard spoke up, gesturing for them both to leave the hangar.

The trio walked in silence from the hangar to a small conference room near the secure QEC holo-comms. Another human-in-disguise was waiting for them there, tending to a large brass pot over a portable hotplate. Not having the benefit of a proper helmet with automatic air-filtration, Ilena's nose crinkled at the smell. It smelled like sour, rotting old leaves.

"Bitterrach tea… and well-aged, too," the batarian admiral proclaimed; wafting the vapors into the ridges of his nose. "I appreciate the gesture, my friends." His four all-black eyes turned towards Ilena. "Though I'm told asari find the smell quite dreadful. May I see your faces?"

Shepard and the other woman exchanged a quick look, and nodded. Both reached up to their helmet faceplates and detached them with a hiss of air. Shepard was Shepard, as always, with brown hair and eyes. The other woman Ilena knew as Miss Chambers. Her hair was red, brighter and longer than Shepard's, and her eyes were a forest green. As far as Ilena knew, Chambers hadn't participated in any of their combat operations since the initial attack on the _Glorious Harsa_. Instead, she spent most of her time with the relative few captives they brought in… for what little time those captives were around, anyway.

"Ahh," the batarian took in the sight of the humans with wide eyes. "Remarkable…"

"The smell is similar to that of kimchee; a foodstuff from our homeworld," Miss Chambers explained, pouring out the foul-smelling (by Ilena's reckoning anyway) liquid into cups and placing them in front of her guests.

"We're not supposed to drink this, are we?" Ilena asked, making a disgusted face as Chambers placed a cup in front of her.

"Oh, no, no, my dear," the batarian admiral answered, simply wafting the smell up with his right hand. "It is flavoring for the air. Taste with your _raak_ – your nose – not with your _saak_ – your tongue."

"Batarian teas are all meant to be smelled, not tasted," Chambers added, finally taking her seat at the table as well.

"Ahhh, yes. This reminds me of home," the batarian said with a wistful sigh. "Bitterrach has been hard to come by of late… not a surprise, since it is only grown on Khar'shan. But where are my manners? The air has been flavored. We are all friends here. I am Grisgo Tak, formerly Captain of the _Hatre_; now Admiral and Captain of the _Independence_. It is a pleasure to see my human allies once again. I trust my family is well?"

"I can open a transmission to them using one of our quantum links," Shepard assured the man. "They are being kept on a space station off the relay network."

"I would like to talk to them again, if only for a few minutes," Grisgo said with a slow, somewhat wobbly nod, due to the batarian's cartilage-heavy skeletal system. "But first, shall we get straight to business?"

He placed his satchel on the table and pulled out a small cylindrical case. A biometric scan unlocked it with a click and it began to revolve, making three more clicks as it turned left, then right, then left. Finally the top popped a few millimeters upward, and Grisgo pulled it entirely free. Suspended inside was a data-crystal.

"As you requested: the VI program, in it's entirely, plus the license to allow it to be reproduced indefinitely," he said, passing the crystal to Shepard to examine with her omni-tool.

"The DRM on this VI is supposed to be one of the hardest to crack in all of Citadel space," Ilena said, seriously. "Even I know that. So how did you do it?"

"I called in a favor with someone I know who used to work for the Armali Council. She left a few years after we met, but her influence there remains strong. She also hoped that I would introduce her to Eclipse and pass along her offer of a job. A few cycles ago her sister was taken by pirates and slavers. As we are operating in the region where she disappeared, she would appreciate us keeping an eye out for her. I will forward you the information in full, later, if you are interested."

"I guess we _do_ owe her a favor," Ilena replied. "What's her name?"

"Nassana Dantius," Grisgo said with a slight trill. "The missing sister is Dahlia Dantius. I knew them both from my days as a military attaché to the Asari Republics. Both are dangerous women… in different ways. If you accept Nassana's proposal, I would appreciate it – she can be a valuable ally – but I would also advise you to **not** trust her. She is ruthless and has no qualms about selling out others to advance her own interests."

"She wouldn't have sold us this technology in the first place if she was reputable," Shepard argued, removing the data-crystal and slipping it into a rectangular case. She then passed the case onto Miss Chambers.

"True enough," Grisgo agreed.

"Admiral," Ilena spoke up, and the batarian's quarter of eyes drifted over to her again. "Thank you for your assistance with this. It is very important to a project of ours."

"I am happy to help, after all the aid your organization has given us," Grisgo assured her with a toothy smile. "Though last time I met humans face-to-face they did not have such a lovely asari among them."

"Flattery?" Ilena asked, resting her head on her hand, propped up by her elbow on the table. "I love flattery!" She shot the batarian gentleman a flirty wink. "It's another of my favorite things!"

"Ilena here was brought in some time after you were," Shepard explained to the admiral. "It was rather spur of the moment, actually. Jona Sederis proved to be unreliable."

"I warned you she would be," Grisgo reminded her, "or… not you, exactly, but those like you."

"Oh, yeah, Jona! They took her mind!" Ilena said with a waggle of her fingers, whispering a ghostly 'oooo-wee-oo' sound. Just as quickly, though, she pointed a finger over Shepard's way. "So, wait, hold on a second! You recruited this guy before me? How'd that happen?"

"I wasn't personally involved-" Shepard began to say.

"Please, allow me," Grigso spoke up for her. "Two years ago, I received word of collector activity in batarian space. You would not be aware of this, but the Hegemony has had infrequent contact with the collectors for several centuries now. They often come to us seeking to purchase unique biological specimens or to request we raid a planet for such individuals. I was part of a group investigating the 'new collectors' who appeared through different unofficial channels."

"This would be back when you were pretending to be collectors," Ilena guessed, asking Shepard or Chambers.

"The collector cover identity worked very well for several years," Shepard said, simply.

"That must have been when I first caught their notice," Grisgo Tak continued his story. "I was contacted over the Hegemony Fleetnet sometime later by an anonymous party. We spoke a few times. Imagine my surprise when, one night, a collector appeared at my home while I was on leave! It was then that I realized these collectors were not the collectors from beyond Omega-4. They were a new race, slow to reveal themselves to the rest of the galaxy. They offered me an opportunity."

"The Hegemony-" the rebel admiral explained, holding out his hands as if pleading for others to understand. "-is a chain around the necks of all batarian peoples. Its anachronistic policies stifle the rights and potential of all batarians, of _all_ castes. While it may have once served a purpose, that time has come and gone. The institution of slavery and the Hegemony's blind insularity harms us all. It has made us a pariah within the intergalactic community. At last, after hundreds of years, we have been given a chance to build something better in its place."

"So you're a patriot?" Ilena asked, just a bit skeptical. "How did you get to be a Captain in the Hegemony, feeling like that?"

"As we all do, I kept my opinions and thoughts to myself," Grisgo replied. He wafted a little more of the fragrant tea into his facial ridges. "I wish I could say I was a simply courageous freedom fighter, like some of the males and even females down on Camala… but…"

Ilena snapped her fingers as she caught on to what the admiral wasn't saying. "They screwed you over somehow, didn't they?"

Grisgo Tak inhaled deeply, savoring the sharp smell of the batarian tea.

"They did," he admitted. "If you've seen my record, you know I have been stationed in citadel space a great many times. I was part of the yahg contact expedition, and I participated in military exercises with the turians and salarians after that. I have friends and contacts among all the citadel races. Within the politics of the Fleet I threw my lot in with the so called 'internationalists' … the pro-citadel faction."

The rebel admiral scoffed, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, his four black eyes stormy.

"That proved to be a mistake," he told her. "Several cycles ago, the pro-citadel faction made a bid to seize power from the isolationists in the Security Directorate. We failed, and as punishment, prominent members were marginalized. I was deemed 'ideologically unsound'… corrupted and weakened by the time I had spent among the citadel races. My name and my family's name were tarnished. Finally, 'evidence' was even fabricated that my mother had been of the River caste. I challenged the accusation and it was left in legal limbo… as a reminder that my life could be destroyed by those I had once considered comrades and fellow servicemen."

"Do you see?" he asked, bearing his teeth and not in a smile. "The Fleet is just as corrupt as the rest of the Hegemony. Both need to be reformed or destroyed… and that change will _not_ come from within like I had once naively believed. Only a revolution will do. I _am_ a patriot, Miss Thanoptis, but I am _also_ a father, and my children _will_ live in a better world than I was raised in."

* * *

"This is excellent, Commander... just what I needed!"

Chakwas used her fingers to manipulate the VI program in the medical bay, producing tiny adjustments on a detailed holographic projection of an asari's face. The VI itself helped, making secondary corrections and projections. The asari face was further overlaid on top of a much less realistic-looking asari.

The base-line face had the skin tone right, but the texture and the dermal features just seemed somehow… off. The longer Ilena looked at that asari skin and face, the more wrong it appeared. If this was the disguise the humans had tried developing before it was no wonder they hadn't used it. It would probably work at a distance, but up close and personal anyone would see through it… or at least any asari would.

"We have everything we need then?" Shepard asked, appraising the holographic projections with a frown. "You really think this will work?"

"Doctor Sanders has already forwarded her new program for spoofing and fooling citadel bioscanners," Chakwas replied with a steady nod of her head. "Look at this. Remarkable! Two thousand years of experience with cosmetic surgery at my fingertips! But, yes… _this_, combined with the improved active anti-bioscanner program…? I'm _very_ confident this can and will work."

"What now? Are you going to ask for volunteers?" Ilena asked, not sure how the humans planned to go about this. "This looks like some pretty serious stuff."

"A volunteer…" Chakwas cupped her hands behind her back, still facing the VI overlays. "Don't we already have one?"

"We do," Shepard answered her. "I don't envy her, but we do."

Ilena stuck out her tongue in disgust. "I _still_ can't believe you're _really_ going to go through with this. This isn't going to make me expendable or anything is it?"

Shepard chuckled, but Chakwas assured her 'no.' "Even if we could perfectly mimic the asari form, we can't perfectly copy or alter birth records or other extranet data. Most importantly, we can't _act_ like asari or even speak like them. Not perfectly. It is in the nuances of behavior and intuition that the illusion is truly sold or lost."

"Our first research project has been competed," Shepard stated with more than a little pride.

"You know what this calls for then, don't you?" Ilena asked, ribbing the human playfully.

"Yes, I know."

"I want you to say it. Go on. Say it."

Shepard just stared at her rather than say it.

"A party," Ilena whispered. "A **research-project-party!** And just your luck! I ordered a few bottles of my favorite drink!" She pulled the two human women in close, her arms around their shoulders. "**Ice Brandy!** Trust me! You'll love it!"

"Ice Brandy?" Shepard asked, eyes narrowed and wary

"It might be worth a try, Major," Chakwas argued, wearing a smile that mirrored Ilena's own.

Outnumbered two-to-one, the stern assault soldier finally caved in.

"Fine," she relented. "Why not? What's the worst that could happen?"


	7. Chapter 7

(7)

* * *

Surprisingly clear headed considering all the alcohol that had to be in her system, Ilena bit down on her lower lip as she felt her newest weapon rest on the palm of her outstretched hand. Who could've guessed these crazy humans, for all their might, had such a weakness for Ice Brandy? Ilena raised a dainty hand to her mouth and laughed before leisurely uncapping the choc-ration. It was a sinful human confection only occasionally offered at the commissary, and no doubt one of human-kind's great contributions to galactic cuisine. In the decades to come, asari all over the galaxy would come to learn of it as she had… but for now, it was Ilena's secret vice.

"What are you going to do with that?" Shepard asked, and Ilena spared the prone human woman with a wink.

"Oh, I think you _know_ what," Ilena teased, uncapping the ration and squeezing out a little dribble of chocolate. Goddess. Chocolate. It was pure edible awesomeness. The asari maiden usually ate it right out of the bottle – for some strange reason most humans stared when she did this – but tonight she had a new idea of how to use it.

A thin black line of chocolate stretched across Shepard's toned stomach.

"Ilena," Shepard said, in her usual deadpan voice. "Come on now."

The powerful human moved slightly, and straddling her waist, Ilena felt her whole body buck upwards. Still, she hung on to the wild human, glancing up to make sure Chakwas was holding her fellow soldier down. The medic chuckled, keeping a hold on the older woman's wrists, held in place above the Major's head. Shepard slowly relaxed again, breathing slowly as more of the chocolate dripped down… circling her belly button… then venturing up to the edge of her black bra.

"Remember our bet," Ilena huskily reminded the human underneath her, working her fingers into the chocolate and smearing it across the human's pale skin. Bringing a finger back up to her lips to lick it clean, the mighty asari commando went back to exploring her human friend's body. Her skin was so soft… but contrasted with a tense muscular hardness beneath. It was like silk over steel.

"I won the game, so I get to show you to _First Contact_… _Asari-Style!_"

Ilena ground her hips against the human woman, rotating her shoulders and languidly moving to a soundless rhythm. Shepard stared up at her with wide brown eyes, but Ilena made sure to turn away and glance over at the third member of their little troupe. "What do you think, Doctor? Should we begin _negotiations?_"

"I didn't know you were a trained diplomat, Commander," the dark-haired medic said, also stripped down to her curious human undergarments.

"We asari are the galaxy's master diplomats, and I am an asari of countless skills!" Ilena boasted, rubbing her half-licked-clean fingers along Shepard's stomach again, past her captive breasts, and up to her shoulders. The stern and too-often humorless human woman seemed to melt like putty under the asari maiden's tender caresses.

"Isn't this nice, Shepard?" she asked, leaning down to capture the human's lips. "Don't you want more? Don't you want everything the Citadel has to offer?"

"Mmmm," the powerful woman cooed.

Ilena's pearl-white lips drifted tantalizingly closer to the human's ruby-red. "In that case…!"

"Ilena!" Shepard said, her tone of voice a little too sharp. She gestured with her eyes towards the left at the sound of an opening door.

Ilena turned her head, only to see a light-blue asari stomp into the room, a bath-robe wrapped around her torso. Her eyes were framed by speckled eyebrow paint above the eyeshadow and she had faint orange stripes like ridges on her head-tentacles. She had a toothbrush in between her teeth and paused mid-stride upon noticing what was going on in the room.

"Oh, Goddess! _Really_, Ilena?" she asked, hand finding her right hip. "You're even worse than mom."

"Rana?" Ilena quickly turned to look down at Shepard, but instead of a sexy, exotic, insanely dangerous but also usually friendly human… there was Plutomus. The geeky turian who had lived down the dormitory hall.

"Let's do it!" he exclaimed in the flanged, broken, teenage voice that only a male turian could manage. "I love you!"

"**NOOOOOOO!**"

It was a dream? That was so cliché and lame! Then again-

"-**Wait! **If this is a dream-" Ilena realized, cupping her chin. She was still straddling _something_. It wasn't too late. Gesturing towards her annoying sister, first, she yelled, "Zap!" And Rana vanished in a puff of smoke.

"**YES!** I have **power** over the **dream**!" the beautiful, awesome, gorgeous, best-ever commando declared. She pointed her hands towards the body beneath her, making wild gestures with her fingers. "By the power of my biotics, become Sexy Shepard! I command it!"

_POOF!_

The smoke began to slowly clear, and Ilena could see the right skin tone… even a hint of where the bra should have met around the chest, but which was now an expanse of perfect, pale human skin. Ilena pumped her fist in triumph. Yes. Yes. YES!

"Ilena! Wake up already!"

"NOOOOOO! **X2 NOOOO!**"

Ripped so cruelly from her dream, just as things were getting to a new Omega-level of sexy, Ilena blinked her groggy eyes. The first thing she saw was Shepard, but not a Shepard slathered in sinfully delicious chocolate. This one had her clothes on. _Damn_. A boot extended to jab the poor asari maiden in the ribs. It didn't hurt, but it did quickly bring to the fore the huge headache currently trying to split her head in two like a prime eezo deposit.

"Ugggh," Ilena managed to propose. "MHffd."

"I have to hand it to you," Shepard stated, towering over the fallen asari. Ilena realized she was on her side… on the floor? Shepard shook her head. "You asari sure have some _interesting_ drinking games."

"Mggh."

Ilena started to rouse herself, only to notice a pair of arms around her midsection. She looked down. They were definitely human. That could only mean-

A sleepy grumble came from behind, and the arms squeezed.

With the force of a blood crazed krogan, they **squeezed!**

"Ribs! Crushing!" Ilena started to flail her arms to escape. "Too young to die! Tell my family I love them!"

Shepard mercifully took a knee and helped to pry loose Karin Chakwas's arms from around Ilena's torso. The commando quickly rolled away and out of danger, feeling a half-dress-size thinner for the experience. Slowly, uneasily, she wobbled back onto her feet and took stock of the situation.

Shepard was already moving away and using her omni-tool to scan for something in the room. Chakwas, meanwhile, was half-dressed on the floor, drooling, and drowsily reaching for something to grab onto and squeeze. She eventually found a pillow that had been thrown onto the floor. It soon ended up in her vice-like grip.

Ilena then looked down at herself. "Uh…Shepard?"

"Yeah?" the human Major asked, having found what she was looking for: a small shotglass with a saucer-shaped ship etched on the side.

"Why am I wearing human underwear?" Ilena asked, pointing down at the cotton… things stuck to her gunports and down below.

"It was a wild night," Shepard explained, punctuating it with a shrug.

"Huh. I guess." Ilena tried moving around a bit to get her balance right. "They feel funny, all soft and snug." Her eyes widened as she realized something, putting the black color of the underclothes together with the size. "They're yours, aren't they?"

Shepard turned – eyebrow raised – and tossed the asari a ration-box that almost, almost, _almost_ looked like it could've been for chocolate. Except it wasn't.

"Coffee," Shepard put a name to the ration-pack, walking past the asari maiden as she pulled at her unfamiliar underpants. "It comes with an anti-intoxicant."

"Coffee? But I hate coffee flavor!" Ilena whined. She licked her lips, contemplative. "Plus, I have a weird taste in my mouth. What did I eat last night?"

"Various things," Shepard replied, deadpan. "Basically anything you could get your hands on."

"Yeah, that _does_ sound like me," Ilena admitted, fiddling with the cap of the ration pack.

"Get ready," Shepard commanded and Ilena could only pout. "And get changed. Something interesting got forwarded to us. We've got a mission today."

"Yeah, yeah. You woke me up from an awesome dream, you know."

"Really? What was it about?"

A purple blush tinted Ilena's cheeks as she popped open the coffee-ration and sucked on the dispensing tube.

"Stuff," she finally answered, to Shepard's confusion.

"Stuff?"

"Fun Stuff."

* * *

"Our target is here, on the third planet of the Vular system," Shepard explained, as the relevant information uploaded to their eye-implants. Sitting among her human squadmates in the cargo hold of the Spaceranger, Ilena saw it too.

Vana was the third planet in the system, but it was also the most distant by far. It orbited the white dwarf star of Vular at thirteen-times the distance Thessia did her own sun. It was yet another cold and lifeless rock in space, larger and heavier than most, just to add extra discomfort to the excursion. The batarian Hegemony had several domed colonies on the planet, originally to mine uranium, then later magnesium. Luckily, the spot they were interested in was pretty far from any of the population centers.

Shepard continued to give her teams the lowdown. "Four hours ago, we received word from reliable sources that one of the frigates formerly attached to the Kaver Research Facility had been sighted in the Vular system. The ship was adrift, but not broadcasting a distress signal, and it quickly crashed on the surface of Vana near an abandoned uranium mine. Due to the chaos in the system and the Hegemony in general, they have been slow to mobilize forces from the rest of the system to investigate. Our expected opposition is local loyalists with minimal space support."

Ilena blinked and a new window popped up, giving her information on the crashed frigate.

It was the _BNV Gornik_, captained by one Zommin Chohl. There was little more information on either, but Shepard did queue up a map of the _Gornik's_ interior layout, based on her standard model of frigate. She was about two hundred meters long with three personnel-decks. Crew compliment was estimated to be between thirty and fifty. Compared to their chaotic attack on the _Glorious Harsa_, this was bound to be a walk in the park.

"Familiarize yourself with the layout of the ship and the area," Shepard ordered, standing before the seated women warriors. "Assignments are as follows. Vinay. Blue Team. Sweep and secure the area around the ship and prevent any outside interference. You have permission to freely engage any x-rays that approach or attempt to land once operations begin. Xia. Gold Team. Enter through the port airlock and sweep the lower level and engineering deck. Black Team. You're with me. We'll be breaching the rear hangar, going up through the second floor, and then up to the bridge. See your overlays for further information."

There was a chorus of affirmatives from the ten human women and they all started either double-checking weapons layouts or other information on their omni-tools or they took on the far-off look of someone engrossed in their eye-implant. A few simply sat silently with their chosen weapon. Shepard walked slowly down the bay, checking in on every one of them.

She was, Ilena had learned, really very different from Jona. It was an unfair comparison anyway, Ilena knew. Jona Sederis was a mercenary who worked with other independent-minded gun-for-hire types. Shepard probably would've done things differently with a bunch of alien mercs she had scrambled together, but Ilena knew she wouldn't do it _that_ differently. Shepard was just fundamentally a pretty quiet and personal sort of woman. The _one time_ she seemed really riled up was when she'd been injured in her fight with that insane krogan.

Aside from that, for all her occasional remarks or dismissive manners, Shepard never seemed to really get visibly upset or angry. Or super happy, either. Jona Sederis was the exact opposite. She spent every moment she had asserting her dominance over others, threatening them, goading them, pushing them, and when she enjoyed doing something, it was pretty damn obvious about it. A lot of the other mercs had liked and respected Jona just for that – everyone knew who was in charge because she was scary and you never knew what she'd do if you stepped out of line. Shepard was scary, too, sometimes, but in a very different way. If you did something stupid or if you were a threat to the team or mission, Ilena knew _exactly_ what Shepard would do. She wouldn't giggle or laugh maniacally while she did it, but she'd kill you all the same, without batting an eye.

Ilena shook her head, trying to dismiss her conflicting thoughts about the human woman. Instead, she focused on looking over the layout of the frigate they were about to assault, and that done, picked out an assault rifle. Unlike the normal Eclipse rifles back on the ship, the "Black Eclipse" weapons all came with an automatic self-destruct. They needed to be keyed to individual suits of armor, and the armor in turn was keyed to biometric signatures. Ilena picked her modified rifle – originally a turian-made Armax Crossfire – and keyed it to her armor.

"Any questions about the mission?" she heard Shepard ask, as the Major made her way to the end of the cargo hold.

"Nope!" Ilena replied with a grin. "I'm good!" Her smile faded just a bit, as a few questions and thoughts did come to mind. It was just a matter of asking them. "But, umm…"

"Go on," Shepard prompted, standing over the seated asari. "What's in your mind?"

"Well, this isn't one of those publicity type missions where you need me to be seen, right?" She held up her fully enclosed helmet to demonstrate that fact. Usually, she went along to better sell the illusion that all the women here were actual asari.

"This is a blackout mission," the human woman replied. "None of this gets leaked to the extranet. Blue Team will have signal jammers just to be sure of it."

"Then why am I here?" Ilena asked, "Why me and not another one of your human soldiers?"

Shepard cocked her head to the side in a strange human way. "Ilena… don't forget, you're the only biotic we have. And you're pretty strong. You're here because you're a good addition to my team."

Ilena looked up at her, searching for any hint of sarcasm. "Really?"

"Really," Shepard assured her. "That isn't a problem is it? Do you want a desk job instead?"

Ilena laughed at the very thought. "As if!"

"Good."

Shepard started to make her way to the armory to retrieve her own weapons for the mission, when Ilena felt the need to ask one more thing. "Hey, Shepard? Why do we care about this ship, anyway? Or Kaver Station?"

The XCOM officer tensed at the question, turning around only after a few long seconds.

"I guess you may as well know," she said, plucking a krogan-made M-300 shotgun off the rack in the front end of the bay. Shepard keyed it to her suit and took a seat next to the asari commando.

"In addition to normal military maintenance and weapons testing, we believe the batarians were researching something on Kaver Station," Shepard explained, running an omni-tool empowered hand over the shotgun to check for blemishes or other damage. "Soon after the liberation of Camala, the batarian military around the station had their own little firefight. We were planning to take the station by storm, but they jettisoned part of the facility-"

"Jettisoned? You mean like it took off into space?"

"More like it blasted off and into the gas giant the station orbited."

_Oh_, so _that_ was where.

"Why?" Ilena wondered.

Why just dump part of your facility into a gas giant?

"It was something they couldn't let us or anyone else capture," Shepard said, though it sounded like she was speculating. "It was also clearly something they expected to need to fire into the heart of a gas giant at the drop of a hat. We believe the batarians have access to some very dangerous… prothean… technology… technology they probably don't understand the dangers of. That's one of the reasons for our involvement in this area of space. It isn't just altruism and a desire to replace the Hegemony with a better neighbor. We need to find out what they have… and if what they have is what we suspect it is."

"And what do you suspect it is?" Ilena asked, noting Shepard's wariness to be one hundred percent clear or truthful. Maybe it was prothean weapons. No one had _ever_ found working prothean weapons before.

Shepard sighed at being prodded into saying it. "The Leviathan of Dis."

"**HA!**" Ilena couldn't help but laugh at her friend's answer. "_That's_ what you're looking for?"

"Oh, Shepard. Shepard, Shepard, Shepard!" She hung her head and patted the poor human on the shoulder. "The Leviathan of Dis? That's just an extranet legend! Like the Slendermaiden, or Keshy, the Sur'kesh monster! Or Kalros, that super huge thresher maw… the one in that simulstim, Maws? I showed you guys Maws, right? Oh my Goddess. Scariest. Simulstim. _Ever_."

Ilena shivered involuntarily. She'd first seen Maws when she was just twenty years old; practically a baby. 'Get offa the planet!' 'You're gonna need a bigger cruiser.' And that scene where the krogan was just hanging out off the edge of the ship and then Maws popped right out and almost snagged him? _Brrrr_. Scary! Though it never _did_ make sense why so many people were spending their vacations on Tuchanka.

Anyway, given Shepard's… experiences with thresher maws in the past, maybe that _wasn't_ the best simulstim for her to watch.

"Point is," Ilena said, giving Shepard a friendly little shake. "It isn't real. No way! It's just an old matriarch's tale."

Shepard returned Ilena's stare for a moment before shrugging herself. "We'll see," she promised, cracking a small smile, "Unless you want to make a bet of it?"

"You're on!" Ilena agreed, without even giving it a second's thought. "I've never lost a bet!"

"You lost one _just last night,_" Shepard reminded her.

"In which case my odds of winning are better than ever!"

"That… _isn't_ how probability works…"

"My superior asari brain tells me it is."

* * *

"Wild Ride has touched down... deploying support platforms."

As Shepard led Fireteam Black down the glowing-blue energy-ramp, Ilena heard a faint hum as two of the cyberdisc mechs detached from recesses on either side of the transport ship. They were followed by a quartet of the eager hanar-like robots. The tentacled mechs wove around one another in a playful spiral before emitting a cloud of particles that activated their unusual cloaking technology.

Semi-transparent windows popped up in Ilena's vision as her eyes linked to those of the hanar-bots. 'Seekers,' she remembered Shepard calling them. They were scouting ahead and transmitting their findings back to the humans. Each one was tagged with a color: yellow, blue, purple and white, to better illuminate its location on the team's composite map. Little red detail-dots also began to appear as enemies were revealed by the flying Seekers.

The XCOM humans seemed to love the autonomous mechs, though they apparently had VI-based alternatives called SHIVs. A few people had already asked for Eclipse to find a way to tech-down the human designs for Eclipse's general use. Ilena still wasn't entire sure what was special about the Seekers and Cyberdiscs, though. It wasn't like they were AIs or anything… _probably_. Aw, Hell. They probably were.

"This is Vinay. Snipers are going airborne."

Ilena, Shepard and her two other teammates hunkered down behind a broken piece of starship plate, ripped free during the _BNV Gornik's _impromptu landing on Vana. Vinay and Fireteam Blue weren't far behind Shepard, except their last step forward was punctuated by bursts of blue fire from their shoulders and legs. All four of them took to the sky, wielding extended-length Haliat Armory Equalizers. They were entry-level sniper rifles by the standards of the Turian Hierarchy, but they were affordable and easily acquired outside turian space.

"Targets in squadsight," Vinay told them over their communal link, a link Ilena knew to be primarily psionic. Her voice was soft spoken and with an odd exotic accent to it, even on top of the usual human tone. "Target IDs confirmed as local loyalist militia. Executing all targets of opportunity."

Far downrange, a lone batarian sniper – unaware of an enemy landing nearby or even of being seen at all – sat at the edge of the roof of his shuttlecraft, boots dangling. He was unaware that Ilena could see him through a cloaked Seeker mech only a stone's throw away. He reached up to adjust his helmet at the same time the four sniper rounds ripped into his kinetic barriers, impacting at virtually the same time. One from each floating sniper a hundred meters away. They didn't bother with headshots… they simply put four rounds into his chest all at once and then moved onto the next target with mechanical precision.

Another batarian, engrossed in an argument with one of his comrades, abruptly jerked and tumbled off his feet as two rounds punched into him. The friend, or maybe it was just a jerk in his unit he hated dealing with, who knew – he was hit by the other two rounds just a heartbeat later. His arms flew wide in shock as he fell on his back. Both bodies then jumped and convulsed as the four flying snipers put two more rounds into each fallen body, just to be sure.

Elsewhere, one batarian, hunkered down behind cover and out of sniping line-of-sight, gasped as he saw the hanar-like Seeker decloak and entangle him in steely tentacles. A hardsuit could provide adequate protection against normal environmental hazards, but nothing like this. The mech seized the man around the throat and then the face and arms. He went down with hardly a gurgle.

_Move follow me over down_

"Let's go," Shepard said, and Ilena felt a hint of pressure ease off her mind. Shepard, Blaise and Chakwas all began to run and Ilena had to rush to keep up. For a moment, it had almost seemed like-

"X-ray!" Chakwas warned, leveling her assault rifle and picking the batarian off. He had been hiding behind a small barricade around the rear of the crashed frigate. A second later, and a Seeker decloaked and descended, tentacles outstretched. A second voice from behind the barricade cried out, only to be muffled a second later.

So far, things were going according to plan.

"Blue. Area clear!" Vinay announced.

"Gold. Approaching port side airlock," Xia informed them, a few seconds later. "Prepping for entry."

"Black," Shepard said over their communications network. "Approaching hangar."

"Umm… Shepard?" Ilena murmured, following the three humans as she slid down the slight incline that had been carved into the barren planet's silica-heavy soil. The hangar was on the underside of the frigate, just in sight. But so was something unexpected. "We didn't do this, did we?"

There were more dead batarians scattered around the open hangar doors.

"No, we didn't," Shepard replied, sweeping her M-300 shotgun over the bodies.

Ilena's eye implant scanned each one, calculating time-of-death and the sources of damage to their hardsuits. By the look of it, they had been gunned down from the front. The puncture holes and penetration was mostly symptomatic of assault rifle fire using disruptor ammunition.

Though she was familiar enough with it, DAmmo wasn't particularly common anywhere in Citadel space. It used a special stripping block and rail system that wrapped the fired round in an electric field, like a miniature shield. This disrupted target shields on contact. The ammo was mostly used to fight synthetics and mechs as it could scramble their sensitive sensors and unprotected electronics. It could also occasionally damage or disable a weapon on the off chance it hit the rifle instead of the one holding it.

[Anomaly][!] [Anomaly][!]

Her optical implants singled out two bodies that had markedly different wounds. They looked like a pair of batarian engineers, going by the armor scheme. Both had been killed behind the remains of some sort of medical equipment. Just like the others, their wounds were on their front.

Which likely meant their attackers had been firing from inside the hangar and the ship…

"Friendly fire, you think?" Chakwas asked as they advanced into the frigate's meager hangar.

"Could be," Shepard conceded. "I'd nuke this whole hangar, but we need the ship intact." Ilena felt a faint tug again, making her head-tentacles itch.

"Moving," Chakwas answered an unspoken command, as she and corporal Blaise – one of the slightly darker skinned humans Ilena only knew by name – split away from the group. The two women disappeared behind scorched but still neatly stacked crates.

"Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are we walking into the bad guy's trap?"

"We aren't walking into it," Shepard replied, holding up her hand and pointing over to a heavily damaged batarian APC. "We're just _poking_ at it."

"Oh, that's much better! Shit!" Ilena heard the rak-rak staccato of rifle fire from inside the hangar.

"X-ray! X-ray! X-ray!" Chakwas yelled.

"I see them!" Shepard answered her friend's call, even from behind high cover. She ripped free a grenade and hurled it in a lazy arc out of her deep cover and into a dark corner somewhere far down the hangar. "Frag out!"

Not even waiting for it to explode, she was already ducking out of cover and hustling further into the hangar.

"Kinetic barriers _don't fail me now!_" Ilena whispered to herself, following close behind.

Chakwas and Blaise had taken the high ground, of a sort, by jumping up onto the top of a parked shuttle. They were firing down on an enemy Ilena still couldn't see but was rapidly approaching and outflanking. Just seconds after hearing Shepard's frag grenade go off; they rounded a maintenance station and came face to face with one of the ship's defenders.

He was batarian, just like the ones outside, but wearing an almost all-black hardsuit with just a few white embellishments on the armor. The hardsuit itself was rather bulky, mostly due to the added solid plate around the upper chest and torso, but what stood out more was the helmet design. There were four rounded holes for the eyes, but they glowed an almost blinding white-hot. The rest of the helmet had been sculpted to resemble a roaring skull, with a gaping open maw. Within the maw was a rather typical breathing apparatus, indicating the helmet's mundane features were perfectly intact and functional… just purposefully concealed behind a frightful façade.

He rounded on Shepard and Ilena, eyes glow, and wielding a weapon the gun-loving asari commando actually didn't recognize. He was fast, but luckily, Shepard was faster. Her M-300 Claymore swung down, catching the batarian on his left arm, the melee attack bypassing whatever kinetic barriers he might have had. It was a blow Ilena knew all too well would've likely shattered her own upper arm into splinters.

The batarian staggered back, but still raised his weapon with his other hand.

Ilena **pushed** and a sphere of blue mass effect fields slammed into the man. While Shepard whirled on her next target, engaging the pair that were still trading fire with Chakwas and Blaise, Ilena opened up with full auto on the stunned and vulnerable batarian. His shields flickered and sparked for a pair of seconds before collapsing under the barrage. Then round after round punched into his body, much of it struggling to crack open his extra-heavy breastplate. Visible craters formed in the armor as bullets failed to fully break through.

Ilena's weapon whined, steaming up as the thermal sinks overloaded. Swapping it out for her sidearm, she couldn't help but admire the fact that this guy's body was even still intact. Droplets of red were seeping out of punctures in the black armor like fat tears. He had to be dead… didn't he? As if on command, her eye implant accessed the status of her target.

There was no heartbeat. So he was dead, then.

[Deceased] her human-modified eyes told her, but then added [Anomaly] [Unknown Cybernetics Detected]

"Shep-" Ilena started to say, turning her head.

A second later, and her body upended as a biotic **shockwave** juggled her in midair. The body she had been looking at was caught in it, too, and ended up flying through the air like a ragdoll. Her kinetic barriers, especially vulnerable to shockwave attacks, vanished with a pathetic sputter. Still tumbling end over end and moments from hitting the ground, Ilena flexed her own biotic muscles, wrapping a protective biotic **barrier** around herself. She hit the ground on all fours and rolled into the nearest cover.

It was easy to follow the trail of fire, even without her eyes highlighting the source of the attack.

Two heavily armored batarians vaulting out from behind cover. At least at a glance, they seemed similar to the man Ilena and Shepard had taken down moments before… except these two had some sort of blocky apparatus over their right arms. They pointed with their right arms, one towards Ilena herself and one towards where Chakwas and Blaise were still firing, and the device cascaded with artificial blue. Just a second later, and two potent biotic **shockwaves** began to punch their way down the hangar, kicking up crates and other lighter objects, while tearing apart anything heavier that was unfortunate enough to be in their path.

Scrambling away, Ilena tried to recall if she'd ever seen anything like this before. Biotic Vanguards and Adepts used shockwave often enough, so it wasn't like it was the rarest thing in the universe, like a breakdancing elcor or a krogan who could sing soprano. But it was rare among non-asari and _especially rare_ to be this potent and destructive. The rather obvious fact that these batarians stuck out their gauntleted arms and hands before unleashing it at least implied that the apparatus was somehow involved. That and the glow. Always with the glowing and the blasting!

Ilena also didn't seem to be the only one to have drawn a connection.

"Major," Chakwas said, even as she jumped away from her former perch, moments before it became consumed by blue fire. "We should try and capture one of these aliens alive, or at least intact."

For just a second, Ilena could imagine Shepard cursing softly.

Yes, let's capture one of the biotic monsters we just happened to stumble into! What fun! For SCIENCE!

"Marking a target for capture," Shepard finally said, in her usual calm. "Concentrate fire on the unmarked X-ray."

A blip appeared over one of the highlighted batarians.

"Ilena!"

"On it!" the asari commando rolled out from cover with all the nimble grace of her ancient kind. And for once she didn't trip or smack into a crate or anything! It was time to shine!

"Eat my shiny blue biotics, bitches!" she yelled, extending both fists. Not really putting much thought into it, other than it would be pretty impressive, Ilena hit the familiar nervous impulses to **push**. And **push** she did. Out of both arms, down both sides of her body, and out of both fists like two azure comets.

"Bw-aaaa-!"

Unfortunately, this also bowled her right over and knocked her clear off her feet.

The two orbs of pulsating mass effect fields flew wide, missing both heavily armored batarians. The twin brutes ducked away from the glowing biotic attacks, even as it missed them by a good couple feet, and whirled on the prone asari. They leveled their augmented arms, charging for a new biotic super-shockwave. Spinning around so her hands and knees found the grated hangar floor, Ilena scrambled like mad, like her life depended on it – which it probably did. Finally digging her toes in, she leapt over a rack of power tools… just a second before the double shockwaves converged on her former position.

She managed to get upright in time to level her M-3 Predator and put a trio of rounds into the left-most of the batarian heavies. Shepard, Blaise and Chakwas had already brought down the brute's shields and started filling it with a great many holes. The biggest and bestest of the holes came when Shepard bull-rushed into the two batarians, put the barrel of her krogan-made shotgun into the creature's stomach – right in between a gap in the plated armor – and fired. Most of what the batarian had had for lunch earlier, along with about half of his internal organs, picked that moment to flee out the other side of his back.

An enraged crackling noise – encrypted verbal comms, maybe – came from the lone soldier left.

He leveled his shockwave-arm at Shepard, but the human was still the faster of the two. She let go of her shotgun and grabbed the alien in a grapple. The weapon discharged bubbly blue biotic blasts, partly into the air, but partly into Shepard's left side. Her shields crackled visibly before popping, and her armor flared and rippled with the tress and distortions. Ilena hopped over the ruined power-tool-rack she had retreated behind a second or two earlier. She could see, via her enhanced eyes, that there were warnings popping up on the status of Shepard's armor.

"Mindflaying! Converge! Now!" Shepard commanded. "Arc Throwers out!"

The batarian made another strangled, angry crackling noise as it tried to get out of the human woman's iron grip. Its biotic-arm charged and discharged again, at a speed impossible for any natural biotic Ilena had ever heard of. Each shockwave discharge – even when pointed upwards and into the ceiling – also seemed to pump warping biotic fields into Shepard's armor and body, just by virtue of proximity. Ilena was almost close enough to help, having reached for her own backup Arc Thrower, when the stressed bulkhead above them collapsed entirely.

Broken pieces of starship hull, internal wiring and lightning, piping and cooling, all fell onto the pair of struggling brutes. Shepard clearly had the advantage over the batarian amid the confusion. It wasn't as strong as her, or even as strong as that insane krogan battlemaster form before, but it had the advantage that Shepard was trying to create an opening to stun it, rather than kill or dismember it. A particularly heavy beam fell from above, wreathed in spilling coolant, hitting Shepard on the shoulder. Amazingly, she shrugged it off, pushed her opponent back hard against a broken weapons crate, and finally got in a clear shot with her Arc Thrower.

The batarian scream came out like a static-filled crackle, but it was clearly still conscious.

It leveled its shockwave-arm at the human woman, confident of a clear shot.

"I don't think so." A second jolt of electricity leapt out from the batarian's side, as Chakwas joined the fray. The heavily armored batarian roared, losing control of its biotics as its nervous system twitched and spasmed. The bulky arm apparatus it had lit up in the wrong order and fizzled.

"My turn! My turn!" Ilena chimed in, squeezing the trigger on her Arc Thrower now that she was close enough. It didn't have much of a satisfying kick, but it was fun to see the lightning blast envelop the bad guy.

Corporal Blaise was the last to appear, and she kept her finger off the trigger of her Arc Thrower.

"Damn, I missed the electroshock gangbang?" she asked, disappointed.

"First come, first serve," Ilena reminded her.

"Two hundred years and you'd think we'd have an Arc Thrower than works more than half the time," Shepard growled, collapsing her stun gun and hooking it into an attachment point on her leg. The still twitching batarian brute collapsed, face-first, into the floor.

The gauntlet it wore – Ilena decided to call it a '**power glove**' for the time being – continued to flash randomly, not in the usual linear order, as if mimicking the fried nervous system of its user. Finally, it faded entirely and went silent. Chakwas was the first to kneel over for a closer look. As you'd expect; the medic and researcher was the one who had called for the capture in the first place. Maybe she could figure out how the 'power glove' worked and then they could all have one!

"Busted up _again_, huh, Shepard?" Ilena couldn't help but observe.

The human glanced over at her, and behind her helmet, the asari could all but feel Shepard's smirk. "Almost got killed _again_, hmm, Ilena?"

Crossing her arms in a pout, Ilena gave a non-committal shrug. "Hey, whatever works!"

"Major," Chakwas interrupted them, holding up the batarian's power glove, still attached to its limp arm. "This isn't a piece of armor. It's been grafted onto… and _into_… the X-ray's arm."

"What's that?" Blaise asked, pointing to a small mark beneath one of the blue-glowy nubs.

"Batarian numbers," Shepard replied, rubbing her left arm. "It reads: Unit Seven Three One."

"Well, that's a rather dark coincidence," Chakwas noted.

"Why?" Ilena asked. "What's so odd about it?"

"Just a dark chapter in human history…" Shepard checked the heat sink in her shotgun and shook her head. "Let's clear the rest of the ship and find out what these bastards have been up to."

They left Chakwas behind with their capture and advanced past the hangar and into the second floor of the _BNV Gornik_. Already, Xia's Fireteam Gold was cutting through the ship's crew to secure the engineering facilities and mass effect core. Not a one of the crashed and stranded batarians seemed prepared to even try and surrender. They fought like fanatics: to the death. It started to make a little sense, then, the fact that they had killed the local militia who tried to investigate the crash.

The Hegemony's Security Directorate appeared to have some pretty ugly skeletons in their collective closet.

* * *

"The _Gornik_? Tell me, why _do_ these batarian ship names all sound the same?"

Tela Vasir didn't seem to mind the fires or the company. She barely felt the heat through her hardsuit and her biotic barriers, and the crack-boom thunder of a shotgun finishing off any potential survivors was like the laughter of an old friend. Propping up a high-backed chair that had fallen over in the earlier firefight, she took a seat on it and kicked up her feet on top of the smoking metal desk.

The apartment's fire suppressor systems had been damaged in the explosion that gutted the high rise building, but it wasn't so worrisome she couldn't afford to kick back for a while. She had the data. That was the important thing. A little collateral damage was a small price to pay… in the long run. Of course, STG wasn't going to be too happy. They'd rather expressly asked her to do this job _discretely_. Not that the salarian intelligence community was one of her biggest galactic fans anyway. Their falling out fifty cycles ago had played a large part in the formation of her current salarian-free intelligence network.

"We've cleared the area," the voice had a distinctly batarian rumble to it. "What now? Should we dispose of the bodies?"

"Leave them," Tela replied, still browsing through the data scrolling across her omni-tool. "Fall back to the ship. I'm sure you've got a place to hide out until I need you again."

The white-armored broker operative grunted and turned to go. Except, he hesitated before leaving.

"Miss Vasir…"

She glanced up from her omni-tool. "What?"

"Batarian is an inflecting compound language," he explained, with an uncomfortable guttural cough, wetter and messier than an asari's equivalent. "Words are combined and fused together and the meaning of the compound word can be different from the individual components. To outsiders, this can result in lexemes that sound alike when they share similar stems."

Tela Vasir, her attention now fully on the shadow broker mercenary, responded with a thoughtful, "Hmm. Are you sure you're a merc and not a linguist?"

The faceless trooper checked the clip on his battle rifle. "I can't be both?"

"What's your name?"

"White Varren."

Ah, she'd almost forgotten the code names. The broker did love his – or her – secrecy.

"White Varren," Tela repeated his code-name. "I might call on you again, so don't go too far."

The man growled in the affirmative and left.

Tela went back to browsing through the database she'd liberated. It had been rather uncomfortably implanted in the back of a batarian businessman's neck. His body still lay slumped over his desk after a bit of impromptu surgery. The rest of his room was strewn with bodies. Most of them were his personal retinue of guards. Someone had gotten pretty paranoid… not that it mattered in the end. They hadn't even managed to drop her biotic barriers.

Sadly, the information was pretty pithy. Tela bundled and forwarded a copy to a local STG front, just like she'd promised. They'd been integral in finding this place, but Tela didn't really expect much help from them in the future. STG didn't like her, and she didn't like STG. They'd needed her to crack open this joint and get at the juicy intel inside, but with that alliance of convenience over, she fully expected them to claim they were "leaving the system." As if.

But there _was_ some interesting information here…

Information her _other friends_ were very interested in.

Eclipse had raided a crashed batarian frigate… a frigate that should not have even been in that part of Hegemony space and that was still classified as operational in the Terminus systems. They had taken the ship, stripped it down, and then scuttled it with a small nuclear charge. It seemed just a tad excessive, and stranger still, Eclipse's fanbase in the extranet hadn't gotten word or wind of it. It was the first _real_ black operation anyone had caught Eclipse involvement in since the _Glorious Harsa_.

On the one hand, blowing up Hegemony shipping was right up Eclipse's alley. It wasn't as if anyone would be surprised to hear about them nuking another enemy ship. The rebels would celebrate, the extranet would post humorous or inappropriate images, and life would go on. It was totally _usual_… except for the mysterious details about the _Gornik_ itself: where it had been, where it was going, and who was onboard. The data here seemed to connect it to the rather recently destroyed Kaver Station.

And to a certain group.

The Hegemony Recycling and Reclamation Corps.

They were glorified janitors, really, responsible for keeping ships and orbital stations sanitary. A few would be doctors, too, making sure no outbreaks of this or that broke out and seeing to potential quarantines. But if that was the case…

Then why did a bunch of doctors, engineers and janitors need a **small fleet** of private warships?

"The work of a Spectre is never done, is it?" Tela asked the dead man on the desk. She lifted her long legs and slowly rose up from her seat in his chair. Patting the corpse on the back of the head, she took some care to weave around the piles of dead men at her feet on her way out of the room.

Maybe it was time to touch base with some of the Broker's other assets in the area.

* * *

.

* * *

(Author Note! Unit 731 here is an obvious reference to the Unit 731 from WW2. I usually don't make my references quite so obvious, so I want to say here that I feel I retain the right to change it to Unit 131 or something similar at a future date. I probably won't, since I dislike retcons and rewrites unless to correct errors, but it might happen. This note is forewarning!)

Also, of course, I'd like to thank all my reviewers! It is really quite uplifting that so many people seem to be watching and enjoying this little side-project of mine!

Sorry there were no hot sexy times beyond the PG bit up top.

Maybe later I might try a Mass Effect-like or HBO-style scene. Maybe. Hell, Ilena would love it, horny asari maiden that she is.

.

**EDIT**

I guess I should look for some cover art for this story too. It has grown long enough to warrant it...


	8. Chapter 8

.

* * *

(8)

* * *

"Is that… makeup?"

"Shepard, hey!" Ilena spared the human woman a cheeky grin and a wave before going back to focusing on her reflection in the mirror. "What's make-up?"

"Make up. Cosmetics," Shepard explained, hands in her pants pockets as she walked around and behind the asari maiden. She had her usual duty uniform on: a strangely patterned olive and black dress shirt and pants pressed and cleaned for their upcoming quantum-entanglement appointment. "Stuff you wear to look more attractive. Either that's makeup, or you're playing with finger-paint."

"Maybe a little bit of both!" Ilena replied, carefully dabbing the tip of her index finger into a small bowl of black ink. Oh so carefully, she swiped her blackened fingertip above her right eye.

"Check it out!" she turned towards the human and raised her single painted-on- eyebrow. "I've got eyebrows now! Just like you guys!"

Shepard raised a finger to try and object – her eyebrows weren't paint after all – but she settled on simply sighing softly. "Ilena. What are you doing? We've got a briefing with Hackett in less than an hour."

"I know. I know!" Ilena turned around to face the bathroom mirror and examine her new black eyebrow. "So make-up is stuff that makes you more attractive?"

"I mostly used it to cover up bruises," Shepard admitted, watching the asari with a curious eye. "But that was just me. Ilena-"

Ilena nodded appreciatively. "You're kind of right. I guess I _am_ sort of doing this to look better… actually, I'd wanted to put on some marks for a while now, but I just kept putting it off. Mostly because I suck at it. But since we're meeting with that cutie Hackett, I figured I might as well see what I could do. Do my eyebrows look good? They're not too thin?"

"Why do you want eyebrows?"

"You humans have them."

"We're _born_ with them."

"They look good on you. I want to see if they look good on _me_." Ilena carefully added on a complimentary sister eyebrow over her left eye. "Mom always used to say we picked up the face painting thing from the turians, but I dunno how true that is. If you've ever looked at asari who spend a lot of time around batarians, they always try and add marks like two more eyes instead of where I'm putting eyebrows. Or girls who spend time around turians add a lot more face paint, usually really intricate stuff, too. Stuff like that. It just helps to blend in… or help you _feel like_ you're blending in, even if you don't."

"So!" she declared, pointing with her pinky finger to the fainter pencil-like sketch-lines she had added to her chin and the V she'd added to her forehead. "This is what I was thinking for my new marks! I was planning to go either all black, like the eyebrows, or maybe use white or red for the rest. Most asari go white. But red was the hot new color when I left asari space. Oh, or I could even try purple!"

"Purple is always good," Shepard agreed, a flash of that same color filling her eyes.

"Awesome!" Ilena really liked that word. It was one of the first human-isms she had picked up during her stay in Arcturus, admittedly mostly from watching human vid-programs. "Hey, actually, that reminds me of something I wanted to ask you about. Is that thing on your arm make-up, too?"

"What, this?" Shepard pivoted, showing Ilena her right arm. There was a logo on her upper arm that never seemed to smudge or fade: a shield-like thing, or maybe an arrowhead, with some lines and stars in it and some weird words. Ilena recognized the letters on them, but she didn't have the translation to interpret it.

"That's it. And you have another one here-" Ilena pointed with her pinky to the back of her neck. "But I never see you actually painting it on. Do you use… like… a stencil or something to do it?"

Shepard stared at her for a long moment, struck a bit dumb.

"These are tattoos," she answered, a little cautiously. It was a tone of voice Ilena had come to associate with her stumbling across some weird human-thing without meaning to. Either that, or something sensitive, but she got the feeling that wasn't the case here.

"Tattoos?"

"The ink is injected under our skin," Shepard explained. "We don't have to reapply it. It's pretty much there forever."

"GAHH!" Ilena recoiled from the woman. "You inject ink _under your skin!_ Goddess, Shepard! What the fuck?"

The human glanced down at her arm, seemingly unaware of how damn strange it was to admit to putting the paint right into your flesh instead of just on the outside. "No tats on Thessia I guess?"

"No!" Ilena recovered just as quickly as she recoiled, cupping her chin in thought. "Actually, that's kind of bad-ass… but no!"

"It might not even be possible with asari skin," Shepard reminded her and Ilena shrugged.

"Maybe, maybe not." She went back to the mirror and opened a new inkwell to mix up a color. "How would you even do that, anyway?"

"There's this high speed needle and it just injects a tiny bit of ink-"

Ilena shuddered. "_Goddess_. No, I think I'll pass on that little slice of human culture."

"Anyway, this isn't a cosmetic tattoo," Shepard said, turning to lean against the wall and crossing her arms. "It's a Psi Labs logo. I got it celebrate my passing mindfray certification."

"And the other one?"

Shepard took a moment to idly brush her fingers over the back of her neck. "That's a MELD stamp… which is sort of complicated, so don't ask."

"Consider it not-asked, then!" Ilena applied a bit of the new light-purple ink to her chin. "And I'll be done with this long before we need to see Commander Hackett. I'm keeping the designs nice and simple."

"Still, must be a pain to have to reapply that stuff, day after day."

"It should last for a while once it dries and sets in. I don't have to do it daily." Ilena smiled as she remembered something. "When Rana and I were younger, we once painted our father's face while he slept, and he was stuck with the designs for a while decicycle! A month, basically." She broke into giggles at the memory. "And of course he just went around like it was totally normal, pretending he didn't notice! What's wrong? Something on my face? In my teeth?"

"Your father wasn't another asari."

Ilena chuckled and shook her head. "No. No. He was salarian. A doctor, just like mom."

"You've never mentioned much about your family," Shepard noted.

"Well, you haven't either," Ilena replied, but the smile on her face – and Shepard's in return – showed that neither were too broken up about the lack of transparency.

"I told you about Hannah and… Akuze," Shepard argued. "Fair's fair."

"Alright," Ilena agreed, making a second thin violet line on her chin. "Well, you know I grew up on a space station around a gas giant, Tevura, in the Parnitha system. There's a lot of automated mining on the moons there, and a lot of miners who run the equipment and service the robots. There are also a lot of research stations. My parents were both medical doctors but they also consulted for Armali – one of our biggest megacorps – and they met while on the job. The whole station, hells, the whole gas giant, was basically run by one of the Armali Council's subsidiaries. It wasn't a bad place to grow up… I know a lot of sentients – sorry, sapients as you call them – had to grow up in worse…"

"But it was _soooo_ boring!" Ilena rolled her eyes and groaned. "My parents had long term contracts, so no one could even leave on vacation or anything. Naturally, _Rana_ never seemed to mind." The bubbly maiden ground a bit of paint between her thumb and index finger. "But I wanted to go exploring or poking around where I didn't belong and _always_ ended up in trouble. The asari who ran security on the station basically had me on a first-name basis. But whenever I was in a bad spot, my father would always show up to bail me out. He was a funny guy, too, Shepard. He'd show up, crack a joke, and walk me out of the office… or even the brig once… and all the guards would be smiling or laughing."

Shaking her head briefly, she dabbed the paint onto her forehead.

"I'm not going to try and claim he was the best doctor in Citadel space or anything," she continued, fondly. "But he was a great dad. Any asari who says salarians aren't 'emotionally invested' in their children doesn't know what she's talking about." She blinked a few times before touching up the paint on her forehead. "Anyway, more importantly, now you know where my hyperactivity comes from. I totally have a salarian metabolism!"

It went without saying that he wasn't around anymore.

"A salarian metabolism?" Shepard asked, closing her eyes in thought. "You certainly eat enough, so I can believe it."

"Oh, gee, _thanks_."

For a couple seconds, Ilena focused on getting her forehead 'V' looking just right.

"So," she broke the silence to shoot a wink Shepard's way. "Hackett's single, right?"

"We are _not_ having this conversation."

"What? I just want to get to know my commanding officer better! Shepard, hey! Come back!"

* * *

"…XCOM is very pleased with the overall progress made by Operation Athena and the Eclipse project," Commander Hackett concluded, having briefly gone over the various operations run by Eclipse over the last quarter-cycle.

Most important in his eyes had been the capture of the _Gornik_ and the steady analysis of its contents relating to Unit 7-31. So far there was no definite connection between 7-31 and the so-called 'Leviathan of Dis' that the humans seemed so interested in, but it was by all accounts a promising lead. The Hegemony Recycling and Reclamation Corps was definitely much more than it let on, and a lot more than what it was supposed to be on paper and in theory. The added fact that they had operatives with an unknown and previously unseen level of cyberized-biotics was chilling. Uncovering more about the mysterious batarian faction was, Hackett made pains to remind both Ilena and Shepard, top-priority.

"We also look forward to seeing your first graduating class of recruits in action," the Commander continued, his quantum-entangled hologram moving to activate a hepatic display on his end, presumably back at Arcturus. "As such, given your progress made thus far, I am authorizing a ten percent increase in your funding on our end. The eezo shipments will be routed as per normal procedures. Use them wisely."

"Thank you, sir," Shepard spoke up, back straight and fully at attention in front of her superior officer. "We won't let you down."

"You know, if you send us _chocolate_ instead of eezo, I bet we could make even more money… ow!"

"Chocolate?" Hackett appeared to have overheard Ilena's whispered muttering, much to Shepard's consternation. The human woman grimaced.

"She can't get enough of it, sir," Shepard explained.

"What's that human phrase again?" Ilena wondered, tapping the now dry lines of paint on her chin. "That I was coco for cocoa?"

"I don't believe we've done any pharmacological studies of that sort on living asari before," Hackett mused. "I'll send a little something extra from Arcturus. You can field-test it. In the meantime, we have some more serious matters to discuss as to your activities into the next quarter-cycle." He keyed up a recording and transmitted a copy over the combined hyperwave and QEC relay system XCOM set up in Citadel space. "Take a look at this."

It took a few seconds to upload and decrypt, but soon expanded into a view of a large rectangular hall or Odeon. The architecture within was distinctly batarian, with the usual emphasis on tiers and right angles. In this case, they were mostly used for seating, but with a raised section in the middle where a smaller group of batarians sat before a stone table. Various placards divided the different groups of batarians in attendance, creating a festive circus-like pageant of colors and icons. This, despite at least half the seats still being conspicuously empty.

"Is this what I think it is?" Ilena inquired, pointing to the paused recording.

"If you think it is the National Assembly of the new Batarian Republic then you happen to be correct," Hackett answered. "Specifically, this is a recording of their second conference… after the official minutes ended. You won't be seeing this on the Extranet news anytime soon."

He hit play, and the recording began with a tumultuous roar.

The former Indris Intermediate Government had recently and formally adopted a new constitution and governing structure based largely on the asari model. All batarians and freed-slaves, including those slaves of alien species who did not wish to try and re-patriate to their homes, were given votes. In the Asari Republics, of course, every asari of legal age could also vote on frequent plebiscites, but legislative content was largely composed by a smaller council of wise matriarchs. The broader population either approved of or rejected the legislation proposed by the geriatric council.

The newly freed batarians had taken a slightly different approach. They had no matriarchs. Instead, legislation and proposals were written by representatives of different ever-shifting voting blocks. Those were represented by the rainbow of digital banners and placards that hovered over the assembly. A smaller group was then chosen from within the National Assembly to form the Cabinet. These seven batarians, seated at the plain stone table in the middle of the chamber, guided and moderated debates and discussion.

So far, the batarian experiment in adapting asari democratic principles looked pretty chaotic. Or maybe that was just a consequence of the topic on hand.

"We cannot afford to rest on our lakars!" the speaker was a tall and muscular batarian in a plain brown sherwani jacket. It was a form of dress that many of the representatives had adopted, either for their actual appearance or for their digital avatars. Most batarians seemed to think it suitably humble, after throwing off the aristocratic yoke, while also being properly formal and dignified.

"Have we forgotten the promises of the Hegemony of less than a cycle ago?" the man asked the Synod, his voice booming like thunder. "Have we forgotten the massacre that nearly befell us, snuffing out any hope for freedom and the dignity it brings? If this movement – if this _crusade_ to recapture the light of dignity that exists in all batarian hearts – if it stops here, in Indris, it will _die_. Brothers. Sisters. The Hegemony cannot and **will not** let us live in peace, for if there is one thing that tyranny cannot abide or forgive, it is _dissent_. It is _defiance_. It is the promise of another way forward into the future."

"My brothers. My sisters!" he implored, standing tall and reaching out to the seated members of the alien congress. "Either this movement _spreads_ or it is _strangled_ in the cradle. Do not pass this resolution solely for your cousins and family on other worlds, struggling for freedom. Pass it for yourselves. Pass it because as long as a single slavemaster is left with his chains he will dream of clasping them around your wrists!"

A chorus of agreement rose up from the Assembly with fists pounding heartily on legs or stone arm-rests. Digital avatars did much the same, albeit soundlessly. The speaker wasn't finished, however. He went on to repeat his call for an expansion of the rebellion into neighboring systems, with the ultimate goal of Khar'shan itself.

"Jinto Yurak," Hackett spoke up, as the recording muted. "He has risen up through the ranks of one of the largest factions within the new batarian government. On Earth, we'd probably call him a demagogue, but for the time being at least he's doing an admirable job of keeping the movement going. XCOM would also like to see the Hegemony itself ultimately eliminated as an institution… so long as it isn't replaced by something worse."

"What could be worse?" Ilena asked, hands on her hips. "Even before I signed up with you guys, everyone and their grandmother knew the Hegemony was the dirtiest government in the galaxy. Just that no one cared enough to do anything about it."

"Things can _always_ get worse," Shepard promised, and Ilena gave her a questioning look. It seemed like pure pessimism.

"Things can always get _better_, too," the asari reminded her.

Shepard nodded, agreeing in principle, but with a warning, too. "I'll have to tell you a story about this country called France, some day. Let's just say: in the chaos of revolution, it's awfully easy for a movement to become a committee, a committee to become a clique, and a clique to become just one man…"

"We have an Operation ongoing with respect to the batarian political situation," Hackett interrupted. "But what this means for Eclipse is that you can expect to be sent on missions for the Batarian Republic outside Indris and even Kite's Nest. Shortly after this speech, the Assembly voted to allocate funds, equipment and men to encourage, arm and otherwise support sister-movements across Hegemony space and particularly in two nearby sectors."

Hackett brought up a galactic map – still minus any information on the extent of human colonization, Ilena noted with little surprise – and zoomed it in on the Hegemony. Two sections highlighted: the Viper Nebula and the Eagle Nebula. Both were on the relative fringes of Hegemony space, one opposite and the other tangential to the violent Terminus Systems. That the rebels would make a push there made sense. As much of a rogue state as the Hegemony was, and as much business as it did in Terminus space, that hostile border still tied up many batarian ships and resources. Every Hegemony ship and soldier stuck in the Omega nebula defending batarian worlds there was one not in Kite's Nest, Eagle or Viper, defending against slave revolts and rebel attacks.

"The next big push is expected to be in these two nebulas," Commander Hackett said, his voice taking on a low rumble. "You will be contacted within the next few days by interested parties within the Batarian Republic and expected to pick a front to operate out of. I would advise you to investigate both options before then."

"So the Eagle Nebula or the Viper Nebula?" Ilena asked, squinting at the two little blobs of light on the galactic map. She turned to Shepard and then to Hackett. "What do you think, sir? Which one is the better bet?"

"The Eagle Nebula is contested ground, only partly colonized by the Hegemony. The Relic system is held by the hanar and also has a substantial drell population. Malgus is a rich but inhospitable system, controlled by the Blood Pack mercenary group-"

"Blood Pack," Ilena noted with a growl. "I hate those guys."

"-Korlus and Imir sit on the border of the Terminus. It is an independent system, quite lawless. The economy appears to revolve around starship salvage."

"Oh, hey! One of the mercs in Jona's band was from there!" Ilena interrupted again, snapping her fingers. "What was his name again? Chappik or Kappik or something-pik. He was from Korlus!"

Ilena then pointed over at Shepard.

"Then Shepard here ripped him in half," she added.

"It was self-defense," the human woman insisted, not sounding particularly repentant. She then nudged Ilena none-too-subtly to remind her to shut up. "Sorry, sir. You were saying?"

"We've detected some unusual activity on Korlus," Hackett continued, letting the interruptions slide for the time being. "A large group of slavers operating out of Artemis Tau is moving in on the planet… we believe with the tacit support of the Hegemony. As the Batarian Republic has a standing bounty on the heads of all slave masters and slave traders, intervention may prove to be both profitable and politically popular."

"Lastly, there is the Hegemony stronghold of Anhur, in the Amun system." Hackett brought up a picture of a lush, green garden world. "The planet is known for its large quantities of platinum. In fact, it is one of the main exporters of it in Hegemony space. The rebellion here is almost completely underground, and supporting it is likely to require direct support from Indris in the form of ships and men. This is not outside the capabilities of Admiral Grisgo and the Republican Navy, but our support will be required to minimize the chance of a counter attack crippling our ally."

"It sounds like you're recommending we go to the Eagle Nebula, sir," Shepard stated. "Isn't the Alpha Relay in the other nebula? Viper?"

"It is," Hackett agreed.

"Alpha Relay?" Ilena asked. "Never heard of it."

"The Alpha Relay is the oldest mass relay known to exist in Citadel Space," Hackett answered her, though with less information than she had expected. "Our initial stealth scans of it have indicated it may have some unusual properties. The Hegemony maintains a small cordon in the area and a research team on site. It is prudent to assume they are also aware of the relay's possibly unique status. Securing the relay and allowing one of our teams unfettered access to it would also be a bonus to the liberation of the Bahak system. I should add that according to our reports, Aratoht – the only habitable planet in the Viper Nebula – is already in the throes of a violent slave revolt."

"There is no need to make this decision right away," the XCOM Commander added, seeing Ilena contemplating the choice. "Different parties within the Republic are likely to make different offers to entice Eclipse to aid in one attack or the other. Just be ready when they do."

"Yes, sir," Ilena and Shepard both replied.

"Lastly, there is the matter of support for Eclipse's research and development programs." Hackett dismissed the galactic map with a wave of his hand. "While we expect Eclipse to eventually be able to fund its own native-science programs, XCOM headquarters in Arcturus is also happy to contribute our own existing teams."

The Commander brought up a trio of displays, one of them very familiar.

"Daro!" Ilena exclaimed, waving happily at seeing her quarian sort-of-friend again. "How are you doing, buckethead?"

"Well enough, idiot," Daro'Xen replied.

She was still in her environmental suit, but her faceplate wasn't tinted, giving Ilena and Shepard a clear look at her actual face. Her skin was a very pale purple – at least it was super-pale by asari standards of purple – but her 'crown' was more like the normal-purple of her enviro-suit. The crown itself was sort of like a cross between the head-tentacles of an asari and the fine hair of a human. Unlike either, though, quarian tendrils were supposed to be sensitive to the touch. They couldn't really be combed or styled and certainly not cut. Appropriately, Daro'Xen's tendrils were just a messy mass bundled up behind her head and out of the way.

Hey eyes, likewise, were a luminescent mauve.

"Your face…" Shepard stated, a little dumbly. It occurred to Ilena that Daro just now was probably the first (living) quarian she had ever seen, even if she was still inside her suit. Seeing a dead one just didn't count; quarians lost all their brilliant luminescence when they died. Of course, Ilena herself only knew what quarians looked like because of porn. _Goddess blessed porn_. Fornax really _should_ be enshrined in someone's pantheon _somewhere_.

"I am attempting to acclimate the humans here to my appearance in preparation for my eventual MELD treatment," Daro'Xen explained succinctly, as if she had little patience for it. "There will be a time when all quarians leave their suits behind. I will be at the forefront of that movement."

"_Acclimating_ them?" Ilena asked with a slowly growing smile. "And how is that working for you, buckethead?"

Daro'Xen's answer came only after a notable and somewhat embarrassed pause.

"Quite well," she finally said. "Some of them apparently find my appearance 'exotic' rather than off-putting."

"I'll bet they do!"

"Your implications are both unnecessary and unwanted," Daro growled. "Now: to business. I have been made aware that Eclipse has a research credit coming up. I wish to propose something, on behalf of the team of which I am a part."

"A sales pitch, sir?" Shepard asked, turning to the silent Commander Hackett.

"She wouldn't be the first researcher we've given some latitude to," he reminded her. "Recall that the first hyperwave decoder almost shook the original XCOM headquarters to pieces."

Shepard grumbled but nodded. "I've heard the story, sir. Grandmother was fond of reminding us of it."

"So what's your proposal?" Ilena asked the quarian engineer. "What have you got for me?"

Daro'Xen smirked behind her transparent visor.

"Killer robots."

"_Sold!_"

* * *

Ilena chewed thoughtfully on a human nutrient bar as the Eclipse shuttlecraft angled down into the planet's atmosphere. The Posheka or 'Angelfish' was among the most common of asari-made drop shuttles, sleek and reliable though not particularly maneuverable. This one in particular was designed to be more than practical: it was part of the public relations illusion for Eclipse. They had a mix of asari and batarian craft currently in service, plus the unofficial human-made craft that were very much not for the public eye, but the former was expected to make up the bulk of operations. Not that Ilena paid the ship itself much attention.

Folding the wrapper of the nutrient bar between her fingers, her eyes were closed as she listened to the music pumping out of her almost invisible ear-buds. Now, asari didn't have the delicate and delightful-to-the-touch ridges that humans called 'ears.' Their actual hearing organs were hidden behind a thin protective membrane almost indistinguishable from skin. As such, she had needed some special equipment made to accommodate both her asari physiology and the physiology of future asari recruits. The result was a nearly transparent strip that stuck to the skin on either side of her head.

It was for discrete communication, naturally, and for important mission stuff.

"Move in to fire at the mainstream of bombers,  
Let off a sharp burst and then turn away!"

Ilena's booted right foot tapped to the tune of the human music.

The ear buds were also useful for 'cultural studies.' Just like any other sentient or sapient species, the humans had their own music and movies and other awesome media. Ilena had been exposed to it only in drips and drabs, but recently, Shepard had unlocked full access to the private human library on the ship. Shep had explained that, after the last month's successes, it only made sense to be freer with information. "The good and the bad," she had said. "It's all there."

Shepard had probably assumed she would go for human history.

How little the poor human knew! Ilena had spent most of her time downloading human music.

"Roll over; spin round to come in behind them,  
Move to their blindsides and firing again!"

And Goddess did the humans have a lot of different music! But it was Ilena's duty as a noble and wise asari to sample it all, make copies as appropriate, and then burn those copies into her regulation ear-strips to listen to between missions. It was for the good of the universe and promoting galactic harmony between races and sisterly love and understanding and… _stuff_.

"Bandits at eight o'clock move in behind us,  
Ten Emme-one-oh-nines out of the sun.  
Ascending and turning our spit-fires to face them,  
Heading straight for them I press down my guns!"

"Hey, Shepard!" Ilena tapped one of the strips to mute it. Her companion was seated opposite her, eyes softly glowing purple as she did something with her psionics. Despite the somewhat distracted, far-off look in the woman's eyes, Ilena knew from experience that she had heard her. "Shepard, what's eight o-clock mean?"

The dark haired human blinked, and the purple flames faded away as she looked up.

"Eight O'clock?" she asked. "It means behind and to the left. Or it just means eight-hundred hours, time-wise."

"Behind and to the left?" Ilena pointed over her left shoulder. "How does it mean that? Is this a human thing?"

Shepard chuckled and shook her head. "You know we have a twenty-four hour day," she stated, and Ilena nodded eagerly. Not that it made sense. Why divide the day up into twenty four pieces instead of ten? "You've never seen one, but we used to have clocks that were round. The day was divided in half, AM and PM, and the time was indicated by little hands that rotated on an axis. Twelve O'clock was at the top of the circle and Six O'clock was at the bottom. So 'six o'clock' or just 'six' came to be associated with something behind you if you were facing forward at 'twelve.' That make any sense?"

"Nope."

Shepard's eyes lowered into a glare. "Not even a _little_ sense?"

"Maybe a _little_," Ilena admitted with a grin. "I think I get it! So what's an emme-one-oh-nine? And why was it fighting a spit-fire?"

"That's… a long story," Shepard replied, a little cautiously, too, Ilena noticed. Was this another big secret the humans had, or was it just another 'long story?' "The 109 and the Spitfire were manned fighter craft used during one of our World Wars."

World _Wars_, as in plural?

"You've had more than one?" Ilena asked with wide eyes.

"…only two." Shepard then amended, "Only two _officially_. It… depends." She leaned back against the inner wall of the dropship. "Why? It isn't like you asari haven't fought each other before."

"Our biggest war before the Rachni… or even before we discovered space flight… was when Matriarch Hexia tried to take over the Thessian League," Ilena answered, recalling the history lessons of her younger days. She had received the bog-standard corporate sponsored education after all. "Hexia controlled three city states and invaded the League with an army of almost a hundred thousand. When she was eventually pushed back by the League Matriarchs it laid the foundation for the Asari Republic as a whole."

Ilena studied her human friend's expression.

"You seem underwhelmed," she noted.

"An army of a hundred thousand asari commandos is actually pretty impressive," Shepard argued, but still had that sort of underwhelmed look: her eyes lidded and her expression schooled-neutral.

"Yeah, well-" Ilena shrugged, not looking too deeply into Shepard's responses. "-we're not turians or krogan or anything. You humans have probably, like, killed each other by the millions or something."

"Or something," Shepard replied, closing her eyes. "When you do get around to looking it up, I'd ask you to keep an open mind. Those wars are just ancient history at this point anyway."

"At least you got some cool music out of it! I think this band and this 'metal' music is definitely my favorite so far!" Ilena snapped her fingers, remembering something she'd meant to bring up earlier. It was another peculiar human-ism: snapping one's fingers. "Oh yeah! Speaking of ancient history, we've gotten another query on the site about Matriarch Dilinaga. Apparently there's still some fringe types out there that are interested in her teachings."

"Too bad for them."

Ilena rolled her eyes as Shepard's dismissive response. "Well, obviously. But they think we're related to her expedition. That's the cover story that came out in that asari paper, remember? Should we do anything about it? Say anything? Deny everything? Anything at all?"

Dilinaga was one of a number of pariah or outcast matriarchs over the millennia. Just like with Hexia, way back in the day, some of them advocated some pretty unusual or even radical theories or beliefs. Rather than fight it out, though, since the age of mass effect almost all were quietly 'encouraged' to just leave asari space with their followers. The idea being that if you wanted to make some big change, or try out some new social model, you could just take your followers, colonize some rock somewhere, and 'do it yourself there, out of everyone else's tentacles.' Quite a few asari colonies were in fact founded that way, later to be assimilated into the republics. Many more potential troublemakers just vanished into the void of space… a fact that was _probably_ really convenient for those in power.

Matriarch Dilinaga, who Ilena had never even heard of before recently, was one of those matriarchs that had been changed by her experiences in the Rachni war. She had believed that uplifting the krogan as the salarians had was a mistake and that that mistake had only been compounded by integrating the turians as a 'replacement.' She had wanted the asari to step in and step up as the main military arm of the Citadel. Most of her writings were about the interaction between force and diplomacy, legal and ethical justifications for the use of military deployments to proactively defend the galactic peace, and theoretical reforms to expand the asari military.

Basically, she was a war hawk.

"What if she's still alive out there somewhere?" Ilena asked, trying to get Shepard to see this from an asari point of view. "We have to at least issue a statement that Dilinaga is dead… or _something_."

"Confirming that we are who they say we are?" the human asked, sounding like she idea rubbed her the wrong way. Ilena knew she, and many other humans, would just prefer to leave the question unanswered. Let everyone speculate. Who didn't love a mystery?

"Every asari thinks there's a matriarch behind Eclipse," Ilena explained, resting her elbows on her knees as she leaned forward. "I mean, it makes sense. That's how these things work. Even Jona Sederis… even she was _almost_ old enough to be a matriarch, and more importantly, she had _friends_ who were matriarchs. Friends who could bankroll and support her behind the scenes. Shepard, you know I pride myself on my outgoing personality, but I don't know even _one_ matriarch to save my life."

"So?" Shepard just raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that how you want it?"

"Yeah. Goddess, _yes_, that's how I want it. I don't want to lick the boots of some old hag!" Ilena still struggled to explain it. Maybe it was just too obvious for an asari, but too strange for a human to get right off the bat. "It's just… it's _weird_, Shepard. We have to say something… anything… before the other matriarchs step in to see how Dilinaga's little colony is going along and why it isn't being let back into the fold. Even if we say our 'colony' is like Illium, and wants to be independent, it isn't something the old ladies back home will just ignore."

Shepard was quiet for a while, digesting what Ilena had said. Finally, she nodded grimly. "Alright. What do you want to do, then?"

"I don't know!"

"You're our resident asari expert."

"No, I'm your resident _asari_."

"Same thing."

"Gah!" Ilena groaned and sat up straight as she considered Eclipse's options. "We need to find out what happened to Dilinaga. If they did die out in deep space, then there's no problem impersonating them, is there? At least we can – or you humans can – send out some of those wacky non-eezo FTL ships of yours. Just zip on through to the other side and poke around. If there's… what? No radio signals or anything nearby, then they're either dead or so out of contact with the rest of the galaxy it doesn't matter, right?"

Shepard smiled very slowly, as if she'd been waiting for Ilena to make the suggestion. Or maybe she was just happy to have made the maiden come to some sort of command decision. "And if we find Dilinaga's expedition?"

"If you find them, then just do to them what you did to me," Ilena replied, her smile broad and showing teeth. "Bribe them with chocolate!"

As the two women laughed, their shuttle slowly circled Binyak – a former batarian plantation planet-side on Camala. Before the rebellion and the resulting Caste War, batarian sugar-fruit had grown on the gently rolling hills. Now, it was a training center for Eclipse Recruits, and though most of the trees still stood, the once quiet hills echoed with gunfire and weapons tests.

Binyak was far from any of the planet's major cities or towns: a huge gated compound where a hundred slaves had toiled alongside automated harvesting equipment. There was a large market in the galaxy for "organic" produce, and until recently the Hegemony had provided a rather substantial share of it, mostly through otherwise inefficient slave labor. With all slavery and castes officially abolished in the new Batarian Republic and Province of Camala, there had been a resulting redistribution of wealth.

Fortunately for the colony, the overthrown Mountain and Heaven caste elites had hoarded vast amounts of material on-planet. There were the usual collections of precious jewels, artwork, and other examples of life's finer things, most of which ended up being sold on the galactic market to raise money. There were also vast stores of eezo and platinum and other rare minerals to keep the government and proposed new social and civil services running.

Ilena didn't really care too much about the details.

The Republic paid their bills. That was what mattered. They had money, and Eclipse had guns and warm – some would even say _smoking hot_ – bodies. Taking down the _Glorious Harsa_ had only been the beginning. The next few weeks had seen Eclipse scooting all over Indris and even once to Untrel to set up smuggling routes for rebel forces. All that had been done using their initial startup forces, provided by XCOM. Now, to hear word from the ground, they were _finally_ ready to expand.

Just in time, too, with the upcoming expedition to the Eagle Nebula.

"This is it! Our first class," Ilena said, looking down and out the open gull-door of the shuttle. She wiped away a make-believe tear. "I'm so proud! Education is the future. That's what my mother always used to say."

"I don't think she meant this kind of education," Shepard guessed, holding onto a strap that hung from the ceiling.

"No she _absolutely_ did _not_," Ilena replied with a laugh. "Oh, Goddess, I can't wait to see you-know-what. What was her name again?"

"Chambers," Shepard reminded her. "Catherine Chambers. She's going by the name 'Cat.'"

"Catty Chambers," Ilena interpreted the name her own way.

To Ilena's surprise, Shepard snickered. "Catty Chambers. Yeah. That's about right."

The shuttle came in for a landing on top of the main building's shuttle pad. Shepard quickly snapped the faceplate of her armor in place, concealing her face from view. Ilena adjusted her visor and hopped down. There was another asari waiting for them on the landing pad, her right hand raised in greeting. Like Shepard and Ilena, she wore the trademark purple and black armor given to Eclipse by XCOM. It was a slightly watered down version of their standard psionic powered armor, set to rather spectacularly disintegrate if the user expired. "If one of us dies… trust me, you'll know it," Shepard had once promised when Ilena had mentioned wearing self-destructive armor. The higher ups had human-alloy inserts for additional tank-like protection.

"So where's Catty?" Ilena asked, approaching the asari. "Did she send you up to-"

"Check your IFF," Shepard said, stomping up along Ilena's side.

She meant the eye-implants.

Ilena did, and noticed a familiar outline around the asari. A second later, and her eyes loaded up a name and registry number for the maiden. Catherine Chambers. This asari was actually human!

"Oh, wow! They really got it to work!" Ilena gushed, running up to the human for a closer look.

After the failures of normal gene modding to produce an "asari skin" for human females, Doctor Chakwas had made a rather unexpected suggestion: that the Thin-Man-like attempts had been unsuccessful because they relied entirely on human mimicry. Chakwas had instead suggested that Eclipse look into the already vast repository of asari cosmetic enhancement and surgery – to use asari expertise to complete the illusion, essentially.

"That… haha wow! That is actually pretty damn realistic!" Ilena decided, exploring the fake-asari's face with her fingers. The human ears were gone, replaced with smooth skin that felt really asari-like, and the hair was all gone – even the finest little tiny hairs – and replaced by a set of elegant head-tentacles. Ilena poked a finger between the tentacles, and felt only more asari skin and scalp. Even the little spots and ridges on the tentacles were individualized and slightly uneven, giving it a natural look.

Actually, Corporal Chambers probably had more well maintained and more attractive tentacles than Ilena herself had! It was really amazing work!

Also, when you thought about it, it was a _little_ creepy too…

"Congratulations," Ilena said, stepping back to give the woman some personal space. "So, how does it feel to be an asari, huh?"

"The change is only skin deep," Chambers reminded her, but followed it up with a wink. "But I'm enjoying it."

"I knew it!" Ilena turned to the still-masked and still obviously human Annabel Shepard. "Come on, Shepard, join the Blue Team!" She reached up and ran her fingers over her scalp. "We could _totally_ sculpt each other's tentacles! Oh! And I could teach you the dance of my people! All we need is a pole and-"

"I'll pass."

Ilena's chattering petered off at the human's blunt rejection.

"Someday," Ilena promised.

"Actually," Corporal Chambers jumped in, "I find asari dance to be very nuanced and expressive…"

"That's one way of describing it," Shepard agreed, making a less obvious pass by Chambers, inspecting the illusion. "Chakwas and that VI certainly outdid themselves, Corporal. I think we have another big breakthrough to send back home."

"The cosmetics VI made it possible," Chambers explained. "Who would've thought our 'eureka' moment would come in the form of a fashion accessory?"

Chambers had it half right: the VI in question was so much more than a mere 'fashion accessory.' The SIDI Personal Fashion Assistant was a must-have for any asari maiden of wealth and taste. From applying the right color, shade and saturation of face-paint to keeping ahead of the latest styles of commando-outfit and tentacle-styles, it made it easy to keep up in the galactic fashion arms race. Chakwas and Sanders had re-tasked the VI to smooth out and then eliminate the artificial imperfections in the 'asari skin' mod. Since the gene-mod itself wasn't up to the task, that meant a bunch of conventional cosmetic surgery being done afterwards.

It was a time consuming process, but Corporal Chambers had volunteered to go under the knife (and into the MELD tank) to test the theory that it could be done. At least so far it looked like a total success. Chambers' skin was a soft blue hue with freckles, typical of south-Thessian born asari, and her tentacles curled back and out very slightly at the tips. Her eyes were a more unusual purple, probably to better disguise any uses of psionics. A single white circle coiled between her eyes to form a circle, like a third eye. It was a stylistic addition to give the impression of her coming from a previously unknown asari colony and city, just like turian tattoos.

"If I were you, I'd be a little more concerned that Chakwas can't reverse it yet," Shepard remarked, arms crossed. "That… and it isn't compatible with our other skin mods, which is rather inconvenient."

"Yeah, I _do_ miss the bioelectric-sensor skin," Chambers admitted with a wistful sigh. "And the modified hearing takes some getting used to, and the skin… but you can adapt pretty quickly. As for the look itself? Just in terms of aesthetics? I can live with it. It isn't like there aren't stranger looking people back home. My daughter Kelly's already got some very 'creative' body mods picked out for when she hits eighteen. Like mother like daughter, you know? Joining XCOM already cost me my tail _and_ my cat ears, which sucked, but now I get to be a _real_ alien instead! So, really, this is like a dream come true!"

"Hey, uh… what are you guys talking about?" Ilena asked when Shepard shook her head in dismay. "Tail and cat ears?"

"Don't worry about it," Shepard said, directing the true-born asari towards the stairs on the side of the landing pad. "Let's go see our new recruits."

"I heard they were having some trouble with the new weapon designs?"

"Yes. That. They don't like the thermal clip prototypes we had shipped in from the Camala National Armory-" the renamed Batarian State Arms fabrication factories seized by the new government, already retooled to produce what the Hegemony had expected to be the next generation of firearms. "-something about it being a 'step backward.' Most are used to just crouching or hunkering down to cool off their weapons... we've had a few singed fingertips."

"That's because the thermal clip idea is dumb!" Ilena pronounced the verdict with thumbs down. "Even if you can shoot faster, changing clips is slow and awkward and I burned myself, too!"

"On the other hand, the VI-based SCOPEs we had sent in from HQ have been a real hit..."

Chambers reached behind to retrieve and expand her turian-made M-9 Tempest. Attached to the top of the SMG was a small digital scope, fading from green to an omni-tool orange. Ilena wasn't all too familiar with the SCOPE project that Daro'Xen and Sanders had advocated. In her case, it was made mostly redundant by the eye-mods she had that already assisted with targeting and aim-correction. Her SCOPE was already built-in.

"My grandpa used a scope like this during the war," Chambers told them, holding it up to eye-level. "Before the second-gen eye-mods made them obsolete."

"The war?" Ilena asked, a little cautiously. The humans liked to dance around this topic. "Not one of the World Wars you guys had, right? You mean the one with the other aliens?"

"Ethereals," Shepard said.

"The Ethereal War… or the First Contact War, some people call it now." Chambers lowered the SMG, taking the lead as they descended towards the planation grounds below. "Grandpa was on secondment from the UK, but he got burned fighting in Mexico City. His team dragged him back to the Skyranger when the all-abort came. They saved his life but he was in critical condition. He was one of the first to volunteer for MEC duty."

Ilena glanced between the two humans, one masked and the other posing as an asari. "Mech duty?"

"Cyberization," Shepard explained, as Catty Chambers kept quiet on the issue. "His organic body was mostly replaced with cybernetic parts."

"Like an arm or a leg?" That wasn't unheard of. Asari weren't into it for various reasons, but the turians used cyber-parts from time to time.

"Eighty-five percent of his body mass was converted," Chambers explained.

That… was a little more excessive than Ilena had imagined. How could anyone even survive that? She imagined being a head in a jar. The idea was kind of funny. Then it was kind of horrifying. Then a bit of both. _Then_ she imagined being a head in a jar commanding a giant killer robot.

Okay, yes, that was a _little_ better.

"The SCOPEs, though," Chambers went back to her original topic. "They've gone over great. We're going to need a lot more of them. We've seen a ten to twenty percent increase in accuracy and the networked holographic targeting works even better now than it did a century ago. The more troopers we can arm with this, the more combat effective they'll become, not just individually, but as a unit."

"We're still working out the Fabrication Rights Management." Shepard was referring to the technology that maintained technical copyright. "Until then, we need to keep the more sensitive technology under wraps."

"Speaking of tech-heads and keeping things under wraps, where's Daro?" Ilena asked. "We're supposed to meet up with her."

"She's still playing with her dolls in Hangar B," Chambers replied with a giggle. "Have either of you seen her face? I love those glowing eyes of hers! I'm surprised we don't have that mod back home."

Shepard scoffed. "We probably will, all too soon."

"Major, are you going to put your virtual-self projection on?"

"No. I'll just keep myself hidden for now. The VSP is a supplement, not a replacement to keeping masked."

"Suit yourself, Major," Chambers said, and gestured forward to the end of the walkway. "And here we are."

Assembled in the plantation courtyard were a mix of potential recruits, most of them asari. A few were turian or salarian. One was even an elcor. Plans had already been made to modify Type-II Eclipse Armor for them, minus the alien alloys, of course. Eventually, the new armor would be classified as the Type-IIT for the turian recruits and the Type-IIS for the salarians, and so on.

"Just like I said in the reports back to base," Chambers said, leading Ilena and Shepard past the two neat rows of recruits in conventional black and gold armor. "Everyone here already has some experience, either in another mercenary outfit or they come recommended by our friends in the Interim Government… sorry, the Batarian Republic. We've double-checked their backgrounds…"

While Chambers spoke, Shepard walked past the men and women with cool indifference. She was already tall by asari standards and the powered armor added to both her height and her bulk. The recruits present recognized the look of all three women right away, straightening up or staring with often undisguised awe. All of them would've been drawn to Eclipse based on the organization's stunning victory on the _Glorious Harsa_… or based on the organization's stand against slavery. Abolitionists were flocking to get in-system by hook or by crook, even though Khar'shan controlled the main sector relay.

The 'next step' Ilena knew, was to vet the candidate by using those weird mental powers the humans had. It would probably be done again after final inspection of the graduates – another reason why Shepard was here, as she was apparently one of the stronger psionics. The way it was probably set up, any abrupt disappearance of those who fail the final mental test would be dismissed as a reassignment. Just like the matriarchs did with Dilinaga, the troublemakers would disappear into the void of space on an assignment they would never officially return from.

"…and, as agreed, the batarian recruits have been shifted to Project Ares and the Republic's own Special Forces," Chambers finished, leading Ilena and Shepard towards a pair of asari separate from the rest.

Both women wore the "training" black and gold armor of the Eclipse recruits, but Ilena was instantly struck by their differences. The woman on the left was a purple-ish blue color, most common among space-born rather than terrestrial asari, with six tightly coiled and exceptionally smooth head tentacles. She stood impatiently and rather confidently, her hands on her hips.

The second woman was much more rigid and at-attention, betraying her stricter commando training. Her facial markings were elaborate in the extreme, swirling around her eyes and over almost every inch of her cheeks, forehead and face. It was a bit of a challenge to see the natural blue beneath it all, a color very similar to Ilena's own powder blue skin. There was hard no-nonsense look to her, too.

"These are the two top performers from our first class," Chambers said, introducing the two asari. She gestured to the stern one. "This is our class valedictorian, Enyala. She came to us from another mercenary group, the Silver Serpents, where she had twelve years of experience as captain of an assault team. After leaving her homeworld of Chalkhos, she trained under the Matriarch Sovesia and graduated with honors from the University of Illium, Light Harbor, with a degree in battlefield tactics. She then spent another twenty years serving under Matriarch Uridia as a bodyguard. Her biotics are certified as Class-Four-C."

"It is an honor to be accepted into Eclipse!" Enyala announced with a salute, her fist to her chest.

"Well, she's eager," Ilena observed.

"You can say that again," the other asari agreed with a smirk, quickly earning an ice-cold death glare from the class valedictorian.

"This is Liselle, our class salutatorian." Chambers introduced the more casual of the mercenary girls. "She's from a space station, Omega, and received informal commando training from her mother."

Shepard, standing before the perfect asari statue that was Enyala, glanced over at Liselle. "That's it?"

"What you see is what you get," Liselle quipped, shrugging in a nonchalant way.

"I like her already!" Ilena remarked, punching the darker colored asari on the shoulder. "She's got spunk! And pep! And raz-a-ma-taz!"

Lisella started at her like she'd grown a second head. "I've got what now?"

Shepard growled, and suddenly slammed a balled fist into Enyala's chest. The asari commando staggered back a step but instantly straightened back up as if nothing had happened at all… despite the strained look of agony in her eyes. A second later and she carefully schooled her expression not to betray anything but iron determination, though the bit of curled lip promised that she wouldn't forget the blow, or the power that had been behind it.

"She's tough," Shepard declared, of their class valedictorian. "That's good." She turned towards Enyala, looming over the asari. "Prove yourself, and we'll make you _tougher_. Corporal. Pick out ten of your best, plus these two. Let's cut their teeth with a mission."

"Right away, ma'am." Corporal Chambers turned and headed towards the twin rows of Eclipse graduates.

"Throwing them right into the meat grinder?" Ilena asked, adopting a bit of her bad-ass mercenary commander colors. "I approve! What did you have in mind?"

Shepard slipped into her supposed role as XO, too. "There are still nests of Hegemony-backed slavers in adjacent systems, all of which have Republic bounties on their heads. There is also the matter of Miss Dantius and the Armali Council license we have to look into. Might I suggest we take the new meat and go scalp hunting?"


End file.
